Our first one was a bit small, but otherwise perfectly formed. Since then, we've had a very steady/consistent size except for the one huge egg.
Also, of the two hens currently laying, one lays slightly darker eggs than the other.
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We have three BRs. Two are the same age and of those, one started laying at about 18 or 19 weeks, and the other waited until 21 weeks. Our third hasn't started laying yet, and she is 21 weeks old this weekend.
Our hens love it when I open the compost corral and start turning the piles. They love to inspect whatever falls out. We compost yard waste, litter from the run/coop, and some kitchen scraps like coffee grounds/veggies that the birds don't like.
(off topic: Today I found a bunch of green beans...
We tried luring/bribing our broody hen out of the nestingbox/coop with treats, but that's not working. So this morning I dunked her bottom in the water and we'll try that again tomorrow and Monday. Hoping for a change. She's not letting our other hen into the nesting box without a fight, so it's...
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I would have, if we didn't keep a cage around it. It was fast asleep in that picture. When it was that small, it would pace up and down along the cage cheeping and cheeping trying to get into the cage with the older birds.
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Wow! Congratulations! The *exact* same thing happened to us this AM (two BRs, two first eggs). I wonder if maybe that's more common than we think?
Checking in with a big update:
The two older ones are definitely hens as we got TWO eggs this morning! Yes, Math (now, "Mathilda") and Mohawk both laid their first eggs this morning!
Now the last mystery: Is the third (CheepersV) a pullet? I really think so, but we'll know for sure in a few...
Mine have taken to eating all of the blossoms off of my pomegranate bush/shrub/tree. Now we just a couple of the beautiful flowers up on the top of the plant. I doubt I'll get m/any pomegranates this year!
I did post some pictures of them in a thread on the "What gender/breed?" forum.
We've had them together for hours at a time now without any incidents, so we're really happy about that.
The issue now is that the little one is not really large enough to sleep outside in the coop yet. Or is it...
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Sorry but you are WRONG. Those ARE Barred Rocks. Dominiques have ROSE combs, these ones have SINGLE combs. And I'd say that the smaller combed one is a pullet, not sure on the one with the bigger comb. Could be a pullet, but I'd wait a little longer. And my guess on the little guy is...
In the last week, one of our barred rock's combs has really started to grow. They're about 8 or 9 weeks old, and we just moved them out into the coop last night.
The bigger comb:
And the smaller comb:
AND, bonus points for your gender guess on this little one (the bird, not the daughter! ):
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We had the little one in with the big ones out in the pen in the yard for over an hour yesterday and the day before. They hardly pecked the little one at all yesterday.
Being first time chicken-ers, we're really running into headaches/problems and I'm sure we're doing things the hard...