What began 3 years ago as a small backyard flock of chickens has laughingly grown into what I call my chicken operation. It began with somewhere around 11-13 girls and one rooster, Carson, (more on him later), and I currently have 27 laying hens. Then there are the 3 roosters, Carson (be patient, it's coming) Willie Nelson, my prize Ameraucana and Wayland Jennings, my accidental buff brahma, who started out as Wynonna Judd, lol.
I have one reliable broody, a black laced red Wyandotte named Baxter, who is fretting in her broody pen with one 4 day old chick. Her habit is to abandon the nest when her first chick hatches out, and if the weather is chilly, and she does it after afternoon chicken chores, the eggs sometimes don't make it. I still place them back under her, and we play a game to see who wins the "not interested in those eggs any more" struggle. I usually admit defeat after around 3 days.
Then there's my lavender orpington, my overachiever as a broody/mama. She is currently on 3 eggs, and they should bust out later next week. Once she gets them to around the 8 week mark, she will find another clutch and settle in once more.
I also have 7- 6 week olds in the garage brooder. One of them is a cuckoo marans rooster, but one of the black copper marans also looks suspiciously male, so choices may need to be made. They are moving to another brooder pen in the coop for a get acquainted week on Saturday.
My old boy Carson has rather consistently tried to kill me since he first came of age. My husband was a big fan of him, but then again, until last fall, he was not out in the coop with me doing chicken chores, and so, he only had the blood and bruises to go by. Now that we have roosters to compare Carsons behavior to, who love me, even to protecting me from Carson, my spouse finally sees that Carson is not what a owner should expect. I must note that it has not been lost on him that Carson has never attempted to fight my husband to the death.
And so this fall, Carson will be headed to the bone broth kingdom of our pantry, along with most of our 3 going on 4 year old hens. I'll keep my broody mama's, even without eggs, they serve a valued need, and there are probably 3 more that are either still cranking out the daily bounty, or have such sweet personalities that we want to keep that in our barnyard gene lines.
We get around 18-26 eggs per day right now during peak laying season, most all are given away. We supply some to friends and family, and around 6 dozen per week go to the Rangers at our local State Park.