One of our old hens has come back into lay, I found this lovely egg in one of the coops this morning. Yummy!
All posts tagged Eggs
First Egg of the Year
Posted by The Garden Smallholder on February 19, 2012
http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/first-egg-of-the-year/
No Valentine’s Day Eggs for Me
Tradition will tell you that hens start laying consistently again after a winter break or slow down, on or around St Valentine’s Day. Our hens are over the moult, healthy and fed a good diet, but this is the first winter that we’ve had no hens laying at all. It’s hardly surprising really, given the girls are getting on a bit (egg production slows right down or stops as hens mature) plus we don’t have as many hens as we did.
Days are gradually starting to get longer and the extra light will stimulate laying, but for one or two of our girls I suspect their egg laying days may be already be over. At some point I will be looking to add a few new hens to the flock, perhaps ex-caged hens or I may opt for POL hybrids, I might even mix. I’m unsure at the moment. We shall see how things go, either way, any non-layers will live their retirement out here.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Posted by The Garden Smallholder on February 14, 2012
http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/no-valentines-day-eggs-for-me/
Eggnormous!
Sorry for the silly post title, couldn’t resist.
A few days ago I collected an enormous egg from one of my chicken coops, I literally blinked in amazement upon first seeing it. I could tell simply from looking at the massive egg that Lily hen had laid it – you recognise colour, shape and patterns of each of your hens eggs. Well I do anyway! The first thing I did was check her vent and general well being, everything looked OK so I picked the egg up for a closer look. The shell was firm and the egg was unsurprisingly heavy, but heavier than I had originally expected. I began to suspect a double yolk egg, so I cracked it open. This is what I found….
As you can see from the photo, there’s a normal yolk and what looked to be either a yolk covered in shell or a smaller round egg. I decided to open up the other strange-looking ‘egg’ to see what was inside…..
You can clearly see that there isn’t a fully formed normal yolk, I believe this to be a wind egg? Correct me if I’m wrong. Even though I was amazed at the contents, I know of all sorts of strange stories with eggs (not just from ex batts) from running my ex battery hens forum . Lily is fine and back to laying normal size eggs, her diet and general health is good so it isn’t anything related to that. She is, however, pretty old for an ex battery hen. Egg laying can present problems in older hens, so my wild guess would be that it’s something to do with her age.
I hope she doesn’t lay another one like this in a hurry.
Posted by The Garden Smallholder on June 20, 2011
http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/eggnormous/
Tough Old Birds, The Morning After Bonfire Night
I spent most of last night worrying myself sick about the hens while the fireworks were whizzing and crashing around, and im sure I was not alone. Our dog does not bat an eyelid at fireworks, in fact he seems to rather like them. I have always said he was wasted on us and should have been a working dog. Our rabbits have seen it all before, if the fireworks get too loud they happily hop into their bedroom department of their hutches and sit it out, but the hens I was very worried for.
I let the girls out earlier than usual this morning, purely because I was fretting about what I would find. All sorts of scary images flashed through my mind, I took a deep breath and opened the pop hole…..my worry was all in vain! They all barged their way eagerly out of the coop like they always do and started eating and scratching around in an instant.
Its amazing really how tough ex battery hens are, but then again I guess they have to be considering their past lives. I did expect their egg production to be down or of poor quality due to the trauma of the fireworks today but again I was wrong, all six hens laid and not one soft shelled egg amongst them.
They truly are tough old birds!
Posted by The Garden Smallholder on November 6, 2008
http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/tough-old-birds-the-morning-after-bonfire-night/
Monster Egg
Posted by The Garden Smallholder on October 6, 2008
http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/monster-egg/
October Harvest
Its not much I know but very satisfying all the same, especially as I did not think we would get any runner beans this year due to my failure to sow them on time, whoops. We hope that this time next year we are harvesting a bit more produce, rather than one big bang all at once in the summer. Planning is the key, this we need to learn and fast.
The hens all layed today, the white egg belongs to Dolly. Lily’s eggs are the deepest brown so again very easy to spot, whatever she produces needs to be thrown away for the time being, which feels awful to do but totally necessary. The chillies are a tad yellow but they do ripen once brought indoors into the warmth. We used one last night and it gave off alot of heat, perfect.
Posted by The Garden Smallholder on October 2, 2008
http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/october-harvest/
Spent Hens?
We have been keeping a record of how many eggs per month our hens are producing, with surprising results. In May they produced 171 eggs, and also the same total for June. July has been the record so far, 179. August they produced 161, a couple of blips here and there but still a steady amount. They have laid a staggering 790 eggs to date including April and the first half of this month. This is obviously far more than we need to feed our family of 4 so the eggs have been gratefully received by family, friends and neighbours. We have swapped them for vegetables, given them away as gifts and sold a few at the gate.
Spent hens? I think not!
Posted by The Garden Smallholder on September 20, 2008
http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/spent-hens/
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Welcome to The Garden Smallholder, it's a blog about vegetable growing and keeping chickens in a rural back garden, also our growing year down on the allotment. thegardensmallholder@yahoo.co.uk
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