Any one want to join me in waiting for eggs, posting and comparing notes?

[Spikes Chooks]

Wow - Debbie welcome back "with the flock". We missed you.
Kidney stones are no fun. I had them both times I was pregnant and I believe they
are worse than the labor I went through. didn't need to have them removed though

glad you are feeling better.

Of my three hens, only two are keeping our family in eggs. The EE gives us one olive egg a week
whether we want it or not.

I can't believe what a slacker she is. We have had them
all since October. I thought she was just a slow bloomer, but come on. When she gives
an egg, it is perfectly normal. Doesn't seem to be any issue other than her being a tease.
We have checked our yard several times and nothing is hidden. She's lucky we enjoy her antics.

I suspect the EE is just toying with you!!! We have a Barnevelder that only laid an egg maybe once or twice a week in her first summer. Now she has finished her first moult she is laying nearly every day. My little suburban flock of four are nearly one year old - and we are having a Hen Party with good friends. "We" have had our first moulting, during our autumn (or "fall" to y'all). Here's what I learnt in my first moult experience:

1. There are so many feathers in the run, you'd think a chicken was dead. Or split a pillow. None of mine looked even vaguely bald, so I know it can get worse. I still was gobsmacked by how many feathers are there each morning.

2. Moulting girls are CRANKY, crabby, grumpy, cantankerous, squabbly. I banned my husband from making snide remarks about ladies and their cycles, let alone the menopause but (just between us) he has a point!

3. I was lucky enough to have one, sweet, calm girl (Ladybird the RIR) not bother with a moult and just lay for us every day. Gotta love her.

4. Beetle the Australorp and Barnie the Barnevelder lost only a few feathers, mostly the small, fluffy ones around their butts. They didn't look naked till they bent over. Ladies, purrrrrlease, there may be children present...... These seemed fairly quick to return but it was still 5-6 weeks off the lay.

5. When their feathers are back and they decide it's time to lay again, they began to eat and drink like elephants. In hindsight they had lost theirn appetite gradually, with their feathers. I guess I didn't notice. Now they fall upon their breakfast mash like they have never seen food before. Drink, drink and drink again.

I'm loving the learning that comes with all the "firsts". We are only 3 weeks away from the shortest day here, so I am intrigued to see how that changes their behaviour again. Hopefully that will perk up Sylvia the Silver Campine, who had the worst moult by far. She completely lost her tail. All her feathers are regrown but her comb and wattle are still very pale and she remains so cranky the others are giving her a hard time. Whew! Who knew chicken-keeping was so variable and fantastic. Not me......

Best wishes to my egg-waiting buddies
Katrina

 

[h0m3gr0wn]

My EE is running around the yard squacking while my production red is in the coop screaming trying to lay an egg. I can't imagine we are going to be able to keep them, haha, they are so loud it is unreal. Do they quiet down? Our chickens started their lives in the bathroom as well. My coop is going to need some sort of fan as well, we were thinking of getting one of those stand fans that hooks to water and sprays a mist. I am in the desert so they are going to need some sort of relief when it hits 115.

 

[countrygirl74]

We got our first egg this AM. The Golden girl is an EE, the black is an Austrolorp and the red is just a production I think...or an Austrolorp. We ate an EE and a production red rooster. The hen was so friggin' loud laying this morning. Do they quiet down as they get stretched out? She sounded like I did at 9.5cm, lol.

My EE is running around the yard squacking while my production red is in the coop screaming trying to lay an egg. I can't imagine we are going to be able to keep them, haha, they are so loud it is unreal. Do they quiet down?

Ours seemed to be much louder when they all first started laying - I don't hear them as much now. When they first started, they would all sing the egg song, now I guess the novelty has worn off and sometimes the only one singing is the one who laid, and everyone else ignores her and goes about their business.

 

[Fletch83]

I use DE in the coop and a little mixed in with food. From what ive read it will help prevent worms but not kill an infestation. I also give ACV in water. I clean coop everyday...i have noticed as it has gotten warmer there are more flies. We plan on making huge run for hens and treating rest of yard

I have also noticed a spike in the fly population around the coop! I've just kept on top off adding DE whenever I go in and rake out the poops. Also have been using ACV in the water, I think I remember reading somewhere that it helps the chickens when the temperatures start going up, but I'm not completely sure.

 

[Fletch83]

I know this isn't about eggs but I had to share that my roosters have found their crow. I thought they were a bit young for it only being 12 weeks? Isn't he just so cute with his little-big boy crow?

Oh my goodness...he looks very proud of himself!

 

[kdwag]

THanks for sharing the moulting story-- not looking forward to cranky quarreling hens-- ugh, mine will be a year old on 9/5. As to the hens being loud, when mine first started laying, they were all pretty loud singers but now maybe one will sing, and it isn't every day. I think they do calm down a bit once they get going. We've had such nice cool and sunny weather this week, not at all like last week's 90s. I can't imagine 115 degree heat-- Mine were all really stressed during our little heat wave and they were much worse on the days when the humidity was the highest. I can't imagine what August will bring us.

 

[jyurina]

So I have been fighting the fight against tapeworms! Blech. They are so gross. Anyway we just finally got all of them laying and I hate using chemicals if I don't have to so I did a mountain of research and started adding about 5% DE to their daily mash mix. This started Friday and on Saturday and Sunday I continued to see poops with segments and on a couple occasions actual worms. Monday-no segments, Tuesday, one poop with lots of segments, but no other affected poop(and believe me, I looked. We are going to keep it up for at least 60 days on this method to wait out the life cycle. Thankfully one side effect of our hideous heat here is that the flys are almost gone. On a related note-since the DE also helps with mineral absorption we haven't gotten any more shell free eggs from Phoebe(our late bloomer) and the eggs are all bigger. I've been keeping records about this so I'll know what I did in the future.

 

[h0m3gr0wn]

So I have been fighting the fight against tapeworms! Blech. They are so gross. Anyway we just finally got all of them laying and I hate using chemicals if I don't have to so I did a mountain of research and started adding about 5% DE to their daily mash mix. This started Friday and on Saturday and Sunday I continued to see poops with segments and on a couple occasions actual worms. Monday-no segments, Tuesday, one poop with lots of segments, but no other affected poop(and believe me, I looked. We are going to keep it up for at least 60 days on this method to wait out the life cycle. Thankfully one side effect of our hideous heat here is that the flys are almost gone. On a related note-since the DE also helps with mineral absorption we haven't gotten any more shell free eggs from Phoebe(our late bloomer) and the eggs are all bigger. I've been keeping records about this so I'll know what I did in the future.

I'm in the Valley too. The girls have been hanging out under a bush in the damp soil during the day. I hope they can stay cool enough out there. What do you do for yours in the heat?

 

[jyurina]

I'm in the Valley too. The girls have been hanging out under a bush in the damp soil during the day. I hope they can stay cool enough out there. What do you do for yours in the heat?

I wet down the grass in the morning so it stays cool most of the day. One of us also will hose off the back porch in the middle of the day-they like to lay on the concrete when it's damp. I also have frozen water bottles that I stick in the nest boxes, they really enjoy it not being so hot in there when they are trying to lay. I tried frozen watermelon and they wouldn't eat it(which made the dogs really happy) but they LOVE frozen cucumber rounds. I throw a handful of those out in the afternoon and they wait till they are slushy and go nuts. So far they are tolerating the heat pretty well, but there is a stark difference in the panting and hot behavior from the barnyard blends I have that come from AZ chickens and the sex links. The sex links are panting and hanging out in the shade while the other two are still scratching around in the yard. Someone on another board said they threw all their veggie scraps into a container and made veggie ice cubes for hers to play with and I may do that as it gets hotter. My chicken shed also has a concrete slab that radiates some serious heat during the afternoon so I tripled the depth of the straw and the temp in there has dropped considerably.

 

[kdwag]

I was wetting their run, creating puddles for them to walk through and i put ice cubes in their water every few hours and just made sure they had plenty of shade which was done with a tarp attached to the east side of their run with hooks at the top and stakes in the ground on the bottom pulled away from the run so that it didn't effect air flow. THat probably helped the most. As for the inside of their coop, I found a little personal fan that I hung and blows on their nest boxes. Not sure it helped a whole lot but it was so hot in their coop I thought something was better than nothing. I don't know which is worse, heat or cold.