I caught her pecking an egg she had separated from the pile in one nest!
We have 14 commercial pullets ( about 10 months old) we bought for $2/each back in March). They were in rough shape, molting, living in some old farmer's very dark shed, with a shaded, muddy run.
They now have a nice airy coop, free range around our farmyard, lots of good GMO free laying mash and scratch , grit, and fresh vegies whenever we have excess and kitchen trimmings.
We were given a 9 month old Bard Rock cock and another friend gave us a trio of 2 Red Rocks and one Cochin around 3 years old.
Eggs we began getting immediately from the red feathered commercial birds. The cock arrived a week later and he seems to be happy and taking care of the hens as he should. Shows them food, watches over them, and of course, bothers them for "favors"?
But, broken empty shells and from the average take of eggs, we notice an unusual drop in production for a Springtime.
Yesterday I heard a knocking in the coop. All the birds were in the yard so I checked, and there was one of the Red Rocks in the one of 9 nests available, just pecking away at an egg. I took her out, we put her into a traveling pen right away. She stayed the day outside in the pen with some grain and water. We gathered our eggs over the day, and low and behold, our production jumped to 13 eggs from an average of 8-10!
Do we stew this bird, or give her away??
Thanks all.
We have 14 commercial pullets ( about 10 months old) we bought for $2/each back in March). They were in rough shape, molting, living in some old farmer's very dark shed, with a shaded, muddy run.
They now have a nice airy coop, free range around our farmyard, lots of good GMO free laying mash and scratch , grit, and fresh vegies whenever we have excess and kitchen trimmings.
We were given a 9 month old Bard Rock cock and another friend gave us a trio of 2 Red Rocks and one Cochin around 3 years old.
Eggs we began getting immediately from the red feathered commercial birds. The cock arrived a week later and he seems to be happy and taking care of the hens as he should. Shows them food, watches over them, and of course, bothers them for "favors"?
But, broken empty shells and from the average take of eggs, we notice an unusual drop in production for a Springtime.
Yesterday I heard a knocking in the coop. All the birds were in the yard so I checked, and there was one of the Red Rocks in the one of 9 nests available, just pecking away at an egg. I took her out, we put her into a traveling pen right away. She stayed the day outside in the pen with some grain and water. We gathered our eggs over the day, and low and behold, our production jumped to 13 eggs from an average of 8-10!
Do we stew this bird, or give her away??
Thanks all.
