what kind of chickens?

[Allyn]

Yay for the first egg! That's awesome and always exciting.

That was good of her to lay it in the nest box. It isn't unusual to find the first egg outside by the water or the feeder as she'll waddle around wondering what the strange pressure is in her backside and then out pops a surprise egg. Chickens instinctually want to lay in a spot that is a bit private. Maybe she felt the pressure and just wanted a private spot to be separated from the others while she dealt with it; and then, surprise, it was an egg. You may still find an egg outside as each pullet has her first lay.

If you haven't already, make sure they have free-choice oyster shell available from now on.

[rainbowgardener]

We have been giving them little bits of oyster shell. But I was wondering about how best to give it to them. Sometimes I just mix it in to their food. If I try giving it to them in a separate bowl or something, it seems to mainly get tipped over and trampled into the ground.

Also they always say NOT to give it to them until they are laying. So far only one of the six is laying, although presumably the others won't be more than two or three weeks behind. Is it a problem if the the ones that aren't laying yet get some?

[digitS']

I don't think so. It may be that the pullets will eat it if there is no grit available and they feel the need for some. Otherwise, I believe that it is just a matter of craving the calcium.

That's where I have trusted their inclinations on what to eat.

Wild chickens do not lay the number of eggs anything close to what our domestic breeds do. Certainly, a layer producing 200 to 300 eggs/year has a massive need for calcium to make up those shells. Laying feed has it and a non-laying pullet has no need for so much. I know that some folks with a rooster in the laying flock will provide some separate, low calcium feed for him and say that doing so extends his life.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

48 hrs later the second egg was waiting for us. It is the same length, but rounder, shaped more like a regular egg. She is making progress!

The chickens can fly over their picket fence, though they don't do it very often. Usually they land themselves just outside and then start trying to get back in. This morning I was working on turning compost pile, so standing at least 15 feet away. "Hawk" flew out of the enclosure and all of the way over to me. I really think she was curious about what I was doing (or maybe interested in the fact that I was exposing all kinds of pill bugs, BSF larvae, and a few earthworms.... Maybe I will throw some in their area.

[applestar]

Did you share the first one or do you now have one each?

[rainbowgardener]

We now have one each, but we are holding out for when we have two each.

Besides I'm finding myself a little reluctant to eat/ destroy them. Seems like they should be preserved or something.

I did put some of the partly finished compost that was writhing with pill bugs and other detritivores into the chicken enclosure. They loved it! Had a great time pecking all the tasty little morsels out from the compost.

[applestar]

Take special photos of each, then make a special collage with photos of the hens ...or...

...when you have the first dozen photos... Shadowbox frame them in dozen oval or circular frames inside of a rectangular one matted with curved corner grey pebbled mat (like an egg carton) and make a commemorative wall decoration.

[digitS']

Open them into a bowl first. There may be blood spots.

Don't be concerned. That first egg or two is quite an event in a chicken's life. There will be lots and lots more!

Soon you will have to be quite imaginative as to what to do with them. BTW, you know how I cleaned my eggs if they needed more than a quick wipe with a wet paper towel? Sandpaper .

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

So we ate our first four eggs for breakfast this morning!!





They were wonderful! You can see and taste the difference, very rich and flavorful and darker colored.

[rainbowgardener]

So we have started letting them out of their enclosure a little. Yesterday was the first time:



They really didn't do much exploring the yard, because they found the compost piles and that was like chicken heaven! They just stood there and did scratch and peck. Did a good job of scattering and mixing.

One interesting observation: they do remember things. Yesterday it took them awhile to get brave enough to come out once we opened the gate and then it took them awhile to find the compost piles. Today as soon as I opened the gate they marched right out and headed straight for the compost piles.

I have three piles: one that is mostly finished, that I am letting settle and finish, a new one that I just started piling a few days ago, and a pile that is just excess fall leaves waiting to be used for mulch or as a compost brown and in the meantime mouldering. The mostly finished one is in the middle and it is the richest with earthworms, pillbugs and detritovores. They all congregated there and just worked and worked on it. I decided they were reducing the biological activity of the pile. So today I changed it from a three sided bin to four sided, so they couldn't get in easily. They still went right to it and walked all around it and stuck their heads in through the lattice. But eventually they gave up and were quite happy working the other two. I didn't mind so much letting them have the worms and bugs out of those piles.

[Allyn]

I put oyster shell in a little plastic dish hung on the wall of the coop next to the nest boxes. I hang it high enough that the laying pullets and hens can reach it, but small chicks can't get into it. Yours can all have oyster shell now. If you have some pullets laying, the other won't be far behind, so you don't have to wait until they actually produce an egg to let them have oyster shell. It's time for them to start getting more calcium.

Excess calcium (more than what comes in starter or grower feed) is not good for roosters/cockerels and for pullet chicks before point of lay. The extra calcium is hard on their kidneys. Your pullets are on the verge of laying, so you're okay giving them calcium. The one(s) that are laying need it right now.

Yes, they do remember. Chickens are actually pretty intelligent; they're much smarter than people give them credit for.

Blood spots are no concern. No need to treat an egg differently because there might be a blood spot.

[rainbowgardener]

We did not see any blood spots. In the picture is just a generous helping of black pepper.

Thanks for the tip about the oyster shell!

[rainbowgardener]

So we've been getting eggs most days from the one hen since 7/12. Today we got another of the very small, very pointed ones, so I'm pretty sure that means we now have two laying hens. Interesting, the three Buff Orpingtons were all from the same batch, but a pretty significant difference in maturing....

I think I know which one she is (Blanche). She was making a big skwaaky noise before she did it. Rose has yet to start laying. She still does not look as developed in comb and wattles as the other two.

The Ameraucana's are harder to tell. I don't think they ever get much comb and wattle. I see lots of pictures on line like this:

[rainbowgardener]

We are letting them out in their enclosure more and out in the yard more. When they were little chicks the 48 sq ft of coop and wire run seemed like plenty. Now that they are so huge, it does look pretty full of chickens. I never was around chickens before and didn't realize how BIG they get. I keep thinking they are full grown and they keep growing. I need to get some better pictures of them...

[Allyn]

If you look at their vents, you might be able to tell who is laying. The ones that aren't laying yet will have smaller, firmer vents. The ones that are laying might have a vent that looks like... well, like it's had an egg pushed through it; bigger and maybe a little more loose.

[rainbowgardener]

We are now up to three eggs a day, so more eggs than we can use! If all goes well we shouldn't have to buy any more store eggs at least until when the hens slow down for the winter. They are all from the Buff Orpingtons, because they are all brown. The Americaunas are supposed to lay blue or green eggs. The Americaunas are one week younger than the Buffs, but should be close to ready.

We are letting them free range in our backyard more (they LOVE the compost piles). But so far it still means that the chickens can be in the yard or the dogs, but not both. We are still working, when we take the time, on training the dogs, which is sitting with the dogs on short leashes while the chickens walk around. The dogs are getting pretty good about that and some of the time will just lie down and relax.

[rainbowgardener]

So today we got four eggs! But as far as we know we still only have three laying hens. The eggs are all brown shelled. We have been told that the Ameraucanas will produce blue or green shelled eggs. Is it even possible for three hens to lay four eggs in a day?

[digitS']

I believe that I have read that it is possible. It's far more likely that one or more of the Ameraucanas is laying a brown egg.

Hens of non-commercial breeds usually have 24+ hour cycles. Still, they are highly productive compared to their wild ancestors. They are laying "clutches" of eggs and will cease to lay to begin the setting (incubation) process. Laying breeds cannot seem to get to that without being compelled to begin laying another clutch. Nevertheless, they have short breaks by skipping a day. Those with a normal longer than 24 hour cycle will probably lay a little later in the morning until it's early afternoon for them. Then, the cycle is briefly interrupted as hens tend not to lay late in the day. Chickens are strongly influenced by daylight or artificial lighting.

Newly laying pullets are "off schedule" at times, however.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

I believe you are right. We found one of the Ameraucanas in a nest box with a (brown) egg. Looking it up, I think that means it is not a pure bred Ameraucana. The pure bred ones, which you likely can only get from a breeder, do lay the blue eggs, but otherwise not necessarily. Too bad, we were looking forward to the blue eggs, but oh well. They are all the same inside the shell...

[rainbowgardener]

We continue to get four eggs most days. Not sure if all six of our hens are laying yet or not.

We let them out to free range our backyard a couple times a day. (The dogs and the chickens alternate who gets to be out in the yard! ) They love it! When we come to let them out, they all line up right by the door squawking to be let out. At first they stayed all clustered up together and didn't go far. But now they have gotten more comfortable with it and are exploring the whole yard and spreading out more.

We've gotten more comfortable with it too, so we leave them out sometimes when we aren't out there with them. They could fly over the fence if they wanted to, but so far they have shown no inclination.

It gives me a quite irrational amount of pleasure to see our backyard with six hens walking around in it, doing their little chicken dances, scratching, pecking, waddle/run/half-fly, etc. When we were thinking about this, I was just thinking about eggs/ producing our own protein. I didn't know I would get attached to them and that they were so adorable!

They learn routines pretty quickly. At first we had to round them up and herd them back in. Now when they've been out for awhile and see us coming, they hustle their fluffy butts back to their compound all on their own.

[rainbowgardener]

Sigh...

I've been trying and trying to get a third planting of corn started and I guess it is not destined to happen. The bed I've been planting corn seeds in is new this year and is just off the south end of our deck. When we started free ranging our chickens, I put fencing around three sides of it. That worked fine for awhile.

I just a couple days tried one last time to plant corn. The chickens who are these days much braver about exploring the whole yard, figured out how to get into the bed by going under the deck and getting into it from the (unfenced) deck side. They ate every corn seed out of it, even though the seeds were planted an inch deep and covered over and patted down. Somehow the chickens had no trouble finding them. I tried shooing them out, but there are more of them than me and I couldn't get to the bed unless I took some of the fence down (meaning the chickens could go out one side and in the other) or crawled under the deck, which I wasn't willing to do. So I gave up and just let my corn seed become chicken food.

I will wait a couple weeks and start planting cool weather stuff again. I do have lots of beans and squash coming on and the second planting of corn still ripening.

[applestar]

Aw bummer! At least you'll "get the corn back" as eggs!

[rainbowgardener]

So I had one of the garden beds with the netting opened up so I could weed it out and plant peas along the edges.

I am letting the tomato plants hang in there, though there isn't much left of them after removing all the septoria. The edges had spinach earlier in the year. There's one pepper plant in the middle of the front edge and one at the short end and some basil at the other short end.

The chickens decided to help me get the soil ready. Nature's little rototillers! After they were done, I chased them out, planted the peas and then put the netting back quickly, before they could eat the peas.

Incidentally, I used up the rest of the finished compost from the pile I've been using, getting this bed ready. So I started piling new stuff into that bin and getting the other one ready to just settle and finish. I poked a couple holes down into that one with a stick, just for aeration and realized it was quite hot down in it! My no-work, just add things as they come along compost piles don't usually heat up very much. But with lots of chicken poop in it, it burns hotter and cooks faster.

[applestar]

They are pretty! No grubs in that bed to worry about now I bet.

[rainbowgardener]

We now finally have all six hens laying, though so far we have not had more than four eggs in one day.

It turns out that the last hen to start laying must be a pure bred Ameraucana because:

The pure bred Ameraucana lay those blue green eggs. The other two we have lay light tan eggs and the Buff Orpingtons lay brown eggs (those are both brown ones in the picture, I didn't manage to include one of the tan ones).

The blue one is smaller, because she just started laying. They always lay smaller eggs at first.

Who is starting to want their own chickens? It is easier and more rewarding than I expected. We spend no more than an hour a day on chicken care, often less, and if you get everything all ship-shape one day, you can get away with skipping a day now and then. We have about 48 sq ft of cage including a covered coop with the roost bars and nesting boxes and some covered run and then an open wire run. That is inside a 10 x 15' fenced enclosure. That 150 sq ft is where they spend most of their time. We've been letting them out to free range our backyard for an hour or so twice a day, morning and afternoon. If they weren't going to be able to free range the backyard, it would be better if the enclosure were a little bigger, but 200 sq ft would probably be good enough (for six hens, depending on breed size, etc).

[applestar]

How fun! Are you at the point where you are starting to think what am I going to do with the extra eggs? It's great that you have your own source of protein along with the garden produce.

[digitS']

Ah but, you will reach a time when there are no rewards other than "chicken companionship" from 6 old hens.

Their feed consumption may drop a bit but they will continue to require care through the final year or two of their lives. You will be trimming toe nails and trying to keep them comfortable.

Speaking of scratching around in the backyard: free-ranging won't contribute much to their diet and you probably already realize that with 6 hens. There was a study of the Red Jungle Fowl done in India during the 1960's. The University of New Mexico has the pdf file online. It showed that flocks averaging about 5 birds ranged over about 5 hectares. I know that in Southeast Asia that it isn't unusual to find the village's flock of chickens a half mile from their home.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, I know that free ranging isn't the mainstay of their diet. We buy commercial chicken food for laying hens and they have it on demand, as much as they want, whenever they want. We also give them greens from the garden and vegetable scraps from the table.

They seem quite happy in our backyard. We never clipped their wings. They easily could fly over our four foot fence, but they never have. They really look forward to their free range time though. When we come to let them out, they all line up right by the door. It is exercise and mental and physical stimulation and makes them happy.

[rainbowgardener]

How fun! Are you at the point where you are starting to think what am I going to do with the extra eggs? It's great that you have your own source of protein along with the garden produce.

We have sold a couple dozen and given away a couple dozen. There's plenty of takers for our "farm" fresh eggs!

[rainbowgardener]

RE: "it showed that flocks averaging about 5 birds ranged over about 5 hectares. I know that in Southeast Asia that it isn't unusual to find the village's flock of chickens a half mile from their home."

Those were probably not birds that were being constantly supplied with high quality chicken feed. If they had to find their own food, they of course would have to forage farther.

[rainbowgardener]

Today we had our first day of getting six eggs in one day from our six hens!! We have sold 2.5 dozen eggs this week and still had enough for ourselves. This experiment is going well. We were total newbies when we started.

[rainbowgardener]

While the chickens were free ranging our backyard, I noticed two of them throwing something around. I went to look and they had a garden toad cornered and were pecking at it and managing to pick it up and drop it on its back, repeatedly. I shooed them away and went back to look. The toad wasn't there any more so apparently it had enough life left to hop off somewhere.

I know they are carnivores as far as eating grubs, worms, insects, but that was not something I expected! Hope the toad is OK.

They are a little bit of a mixed blessing in the backyard eco-system. They eat the japanese beetle and other grubs and pest insects, but also earthworms and other detritovores out of the compost piles. And they are agents of entropy! Anything I have piled, like leaf pile, mulch pile, brush pile, they immediately have to un-pile. That is mostly funny, but I do spend a lot more time raking my piles back together. If I decide I don't want to, then I will have to fence off the piles to exclude them, but so far I'm okay with it, rather than having lots more fences (I already have all my garden beds fenced.)

[rainbowgardener]

So here with the days getting very short, our chickens have cut their laying in half. They were laying one egg a day a piece, almost every day, like about 6 a week per hen. Now we are down to about three per week per hen.

I had heard that if you give them supplemental light in their coop in the winter, they keep laying better, so we had been thinking about doing that. But as I looked in to it more, it seems that it is kind of stressful on the hens to keep them laying with no break. AND (like human females) the hens are born with all the ova already inside them that they will ever have. So if you keep them laying year round, it just means they will have fewer years of laying as they use up the supply faster.

So we decided to keep our hens natural. Natural is how I do plants, so it makes sense to manage our hens the same way. They still seem very happy and healthy. They apparently "like" us, at least they follow us around the yard a lot, come to check on what we are doing, and come when they are called (as a flock, they do not respond to or recognize their individual names at all; chickens may not have as strong a sense of individuality as people and dogs do, since they are such flock animals). They are very well-behaved, come when we want them to go back in their coop, lay all their eggs in the nest boxes and no where else, and almost never poop in the nest box.

At one point we went away and left the chickens free ranging in the back yard for a couple hours. When we came back, our next door neighbor told us he had a chicken in his back yard. He was making elaborate plans for how to get it back in our yard, but as soon as it saw us, it immediately flew back over the fence and came to us!

We love our little pet hens!!

[applestar]

I love your updates. It sounds like the chickens were your best gardening addition this year (as well as your labor of love building the raised beds, of course)

[digitS']

... So if you keep them laying year round, it just means they will have fewer years of laying as they use up the supply faster. ... as soon as it saw us, it immediately flew back over the fence and came to us!

We love our little pet hens!!

Hey! It's good that you are enjoying them, RG.

The depletion of the ova has been a subject of study by a WSU researcher. She used Coturnix quail in her study but they aren't very distant as a relative. What was interesting to me is that there is a multitude of ova! Before they are "lost," the bird ages beyond its reproductive life. However, keep in mind that 300 eggs a year was beyond comprehension for people keeping laying hens a couple hundred years ago.

Okay, the wild chicken lives in much lower latitudes than the US. If you lived near the Arctic Circle, you would never think of NOT providing supplemental lighting in your heated coop during the winter months.

See, there are a couple sides to this supplemental lighting issue.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Thanks for the info! What I have read says that those of us not at all close to the Arctic circle should NOT heat the coops.

These hens went through some freezing weather when we first got them in march, when they were a month old. They seemed just fine. Just huddled themselves up in a big feather pile to share warmth. I think chickens are pretty cold hardy. Our average low temperature is 30 degrees all through Jan. and 30-36 through Feb. We average nine nights a year when the temps get down to 20 degrees and 30 nights a year when it gets to 32. But even in the coldest part of the winter, the daytime temps are always above freezing, Jan average high temp 48-50. And all that is historic (pre- global warming) averages. My two winters here, we haven't seen anything like 30 nights in a year when it got down to freezing.

In these temps, I think it is better just to let the chickens adapt to ambient.

[digitS']

They will adjust and especially those of your breed choices. They aren't scrawny lightweights. You may not even notice much of an increase in the calories the hens will be eating.

I never really had the lightweights, either.

It probably wasn't a very good idea but I once allowed the chickens to make their own choices of where they wanted to be during the coldest weeks of a cold winter. This was on a farm and they promptly abandoned their small coop and moved to the more open barn.

I noticed that on days when the temperatures did not warm above zero Fahrenheit, they wouldn't leave the floor and would stay in the loose hay. On those days, they seemed especially lethargic. That was probably coming too close to their survival limits.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

New question:

Since the days got short, our hens are laying about half as many eggs. I understand this is to be expected.

But recently one of our hens (we don't know which) has gone back to laying eggs that are very small and very pointed. We were told that eggs like this are normal when they first start laying. In fact each of them did lay one or two small pointy eggs when they were starting to lay, in early summer. Since then, we haven't seen any more like that until now.

What do you think, friends? Is this normal or a sign of some problem?

[digitS']

You will need someone with more knowledge and experience with laying hens than I have, RainbowGardener. Although I had backyard flocks for a good number of years, they never amounted to very many hens at a time and I never had a single class in animal husbandry in school.

What I did research and learn as a gardener with chickens mostly had to do with their diet. Eggs are primarily protein and fat and water and the minerals in the shells. It takes a good deal of all four to allow a hen to produce an egg each day.

Fresh water and something like crushed oyster shell should be there as a constant and a free choice. The calories in their food can be converted to fat.

Proteins are a little tricky if garden produce is a very large source of the hen's diet. Most vegetables may be good sources of calories and other nutrients but they are often low in protein. What protein is there isn't a complete animal protein, like the hen is producing in that egg. So, a balance of proteins has to be in her diet to sustain egg production.

The production of eggs can be turned off by factors like environmental and biological change and dietary deficiencies. However, the hen has these genetic imperatives, pushing those eggs along. It's a reason that highly productive breeds cannot switch to a brooding cycle to hatch their own eggs, completing a reproductive cycle that egg laying is all about. They are compelled to produce not just 10 or 12 eggs to fill a nest but many, many more than that!

My guess is that the hen laying substandard eggs is just winding down from a more productive period. Attention to her complete nutrition requirements may be needed but, then again, it always should be a very important concern.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

They are not fed mainly off garden produce. They have good quality commercial chicken food for laying hens and oyster shell and grit available on demand all the time. They never see the bottom of their feeder. Lately we have been supplementing with high protein chicken "snacks" with sunflower seed and a lot of other stuff in it and with meal worms, for extra protein. The garden produce or kitchen scraps when they get them is just a little extra treat, that makes more diversity in their diet.