Colorado

[PirateGirl]

@HBRRanchCO I'm pretty sure the calcium they eat during the day becomes the shell of the egg that they form overnight that same night. I'm not sure about other things they eat.

 

[lomine]

It's hard to say if the soft shell was just from stress or she wasn't getting enough calcium unless you know how she was laying before. I'm guessing it was stress. I think it takes a while for a hen's calcium levels to be depleted because mine have gone a couple days without oyster shell (ran out and didn't go to store) without their egg shells changing. I don't think they eat oyster shell every day. My bowl will go from almost full of oyster shell to empty in a couple of days and then I fill it and it's not touched again for days. But at the same time a soft shell problem can get fixed pretty quickly.

Yes @PirateGirl these birds can drive me crazy sometimes. They can be like grouchy old men who are stuck in their ways and don't want to change.

My ducks aren't laying right now. My older ones haven't laid since before they molted. I want to say that was in October so it's been a long break. I'm actually a bit disappointed because they are supposed to lay around 300 eggs a year and so far aren't even close to that. But those three were my first poultry and more pet like than any of the others. No matter what I think I'll be letting them stick around for life. The younger ones are 22 weeks old now. They might start before the others.

 

[HBRRanchCO]

Thanks for your thoughts! Like I said, still learning tons of stuff every day lol

 

[lomine]

I don't think we every stop learning.

@HBRRanchCO do you have any pictures of your girls?

 

[HBRRanchCO]

I have some, working on better ones as the new girls get settled. Today was the first day it hasn’t been crazy cold or stormy, but of course work was nuts so I didn’t bring my phone out to take pictures lol

This is kind of a good one of our little coop that we’ve been working on retrofitting to make work, and all 6 of the chickens. The two black ones are not happy with the new additions (grumpy ol biddies) so they’re in their little apartment under the coop that has plastic around 2 sides, wood on the 3rd and mesh on the 4th. The three original ones get to roam the outside yard when it’s nice during the day, so we’ve been able to let the new ones get more comfy inside the run and no one has to be locked up for too long.

Original 3

New 3 - We noticed today that all 3 of the new ones seem to be a lot less ruffled and smooth today. Hopefully they’ll continue to be happy here (if we can keep the black ones off of them, the one got a mouthful of feathers today off one of the brown ones! I was mad even though I know they’re just chickens )

 

[PirateGirl]

View attachment 1264382 I have some, working on better ones as the new girls get settled. Today was the first day it hasn’t been crazy cold or stormy, but of course work was nuts so I didn’t bring my phone out to take pictures lol

This is kind of a good one of our little coop that we’ve been working on retrofitting to make work, and all 6 of the chickens. The two black ones are not happy with the new additions (grumpy ol biddies) so they’re in their little apartment under the coop that has plastic around 2 sides, wood on the 3rd and mesh on the 4th. The three original ones get to roam the outside yard when it’s nice during the day, so we’ve been able to let the new ones get more comfy inside the run and no one has to be locked up for too long.

View attachment 1264394 Original 3

View attachment 1264396 View attachment 1264397

New 3 - We noticed today that all 3 of the new ones seem to be a lot less ruffled and smooth today. Hopefully they’ll continue to be happy here (if we can keep the black ones off of them, the one got a mouthful of feathers today off one of the brown ones! I was mad even though I know they’re just chickens )

Mine are usually docile and friendly with each other and one day one full on grabbed another by the comb in front of me, I was mortified!

 

[lomine]

Look what I found hidden in the barn. Unfortunately they were frozen and thawed so I won’t be eating them. I plan to check each one and make scrambled egg for the birds.

 

[HBRRanchCO]

oh dear! hahaha Where were they?

 

[uzisuzuki]

Look what I found hidden in the barn. Unfortunately they were frozen and thawed so I won’t be eating them. I plan to check each one and make scrambled egg for the birds.
View attachment 1264805

This is almost exactly how I found out all my white polish had started laying! I cannot get all of them to go into the coop still & I keep finding eggs all over in weird places!

 

[lomine]

Many mornings I find a chicken or two in the barn outside of their coop. The top of the coop is open and they like to roost there and I think they just jump down in the morning. They like to eat the leftover grain from the goat milk stand and drink from the cats water. And of course poop everywhere. I think that's why they are laying in the barn. Found the big pile of eggs behind a board I have leaning against the wall. I also found one egg in my duck nest box which I took out of the coop to clean and fix but haven't put back. This morning I found an egg behind a straw bale. They certainly like to keep me on my toes.