First Egg Countdown

[Nikki99]

the weather is crazy here on the delmarVa, ESVA, Eastern Shore of Virginia!!


The "Hen Hotel" is full here at our house (we even let Bluie the Roo in!) the birdies are doing well! all fed up today and they have plenty of water to drink in the run!! we keep looking through the window to check on the birdies but they are tucked into the "Hotel" nice and dry!


if you would like to see (LOTS OF PICS) how OUR AREA was effected look on facebook and look up ESVA'S "Hurricane Sandy" page!!


God Bless everyone that is enduring the storm!

This is one for the memory book that is for sure !

Wow, those pics on fb are somethine else. I can't imagine having to go through what so many are dealing with now. Hope you and your loved ones are all ok.

 

[Bayside Chicks]

Well i am glad to report the Eastern Shore of VirginiA was very blessed! Lots of flooding in lots of areas around us, but no Deaths have been reported that i have heard of! Loosing items is bad enough but loosing lives is a whole nother level...

the girls are back to free ranging in the afternoons and Bluie our Roo has his yard back

 

[Happy Chooks]

So glad you all are okay!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Okay, I'll admit it............................my 32 week old barnevelder is officially driving me nuts waiting for her to lay!

Her sister has been laying for about a month now.


I also have a 21 week old lavender ameraucana and she's nowhere close to laying. A bunch of freeloaders!

 

[Gifa]

My girls are 23 (and a half) weeks old now.

Two of my Easter Eggers are doing the hussy squat thing in a major way... and my Wyandottes have been investigating the nestboxes as of late also.

My Leghorn's been a fairly reliable layer since she started 2 weeks ago. Got her 13th egg today, and it weighed 50g. She's only taken 2 days off since the 21st of October. And the last break may or may not have to do with the fact that I changed out all of the bedding in the coop and decided against a nest box full of straw (which they were just kicking out of the nest boxes anyway) going with hardwood pellets that had been softened some with a little added water, but not broken down to sawdust completely. Even the next day she was unhappy about the lack of straw, so I put just enough in there to say there's straw in there, but not so much that it's full. But she's back on the job again and back to her 10:30 - 11:30 schedule at that.

I've built a little spreadsheet to track all this stuff and I'm dying to enter data in the other columns... or in other words, Nerd nerd nerd nerdnerdnerd nerd, nerd.

 

[Flowerbh]

My girls are 23 (and a half) weeks old now.

Two of my Easter Eggers are doing the hussy squat thing in a major way... and my Wyandottes have been investigating the nestboxes as of late also.

My Leghorn's been a fairly reliable layer since she started 2 weeks ago. Got her 13th egg today, and it weighed 50g. She's only taken 2 days off since the 21st of October. And the last break may or may not have to do with the fact that I changed out all of the bedding in the coop and decided against a nest box full of straw (which they were just kicking out of the nest boxes anyway) going with hardwood pellets that had been softened some with a little added water, but not broken down to sawdust completely. Even the next day she was unhappy about the lack of straw, so I put just enough in there to say there's straw in there, but not so much that it's full. But she's back on the job again and back to her 10:30 - 11:30 schedule at that.

I've built a little spreadsheet to track all this stuff and I'm dying to enter data in the other columns... or in other words, Nerd nerd nerd nerdnerdnerd nerd, nerd.

So I have a brown leghorn who waited forever to lay her eggs. She lays the smallest egg of all my hens and she only laid 15 eggs for the whole month of Oct! My RIR, BO, BR and EE all laid 27-29 eggs for Oct! What's wrong with that silly leghorn? I also keep data on my eggs/hens!

 

[off-grid hen]

I have brown leghorns that laid at 32 weeks, and laid less frequently when they first came into lay. This spring, though, they laid 4-5 eggs per week on very regular schedules. Every hen is different. She will find he schedule, and it may take a while. It's also colder with fewer daylight hours now, so their current laying schedule may change come spring.

 

[off-grid hen]

I think this egg is from the Barnevelder! The other pullets have red combs and wattles, but their body shapes don't look as ready yet. So, I think my barnie laid this one! Plus, I saw her in and out of the nest boxes this morning.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Congrats! Looks like a barnie egg - nice and round.


BUT that means your barnevelder beat mine.

And mine is older darnit! She's so red in the face too - I really want to see her egg color, since I'm keeping her for breeding. The other one that is laying, is a cull - so she will be going to a friends house to just be a layer.

 

[off-grid hen]

She hatched April 9th, so that put her at 30 weeks. It felt like an eternity! If I could do the cowering under the chair smiley on the iPad, I'd put it here.

I wish I lived closer, cause I would love to take your cull!