fuzzi's Chicken Journal

[fuzzi]

Well, Martha just needs to wait for the Spring.


I've read that it's best to postpone breeding until your flock is a year old.

 

[fuzzi]

I had a new pullet start to lay this week. Caught her in the nest box this morning! Now I'm watching her sisters.

How old are the pullets?

 

[NanaK]

I've read that it's best to postpone breeding until your flock is a year old.

I was told that too. bigger eggs = bigger healthy chicks

My pullets are about 20 weeks. Tractor supply babies. They were marked Marans pullets. I got six on May 2. I think they are Midnight Majesty Marans from Hoover's Hatchery. This would make them a hybrid.

The one on the left was in the nest box this morning.

They got some tomato and pumpkin snacks today.


The darker brown egg in the middle was hers. The light egg is pale green from my Easter Egger, the light tan is from my Wyandotte.

 

[fuzzi]

Mine love tomatoes!

What will they do when the supply runs out?

Such pretty birds and eggs

 

[NanaK]

Thank you!

Hopefully when the tomatoes run out the greens will be close to ready. Cabbage, collards, mustard and broccoli. There might be a lull between.

I just tossed them a couple tomatoes. They don't mind the not so pretty ones.
One had a fruit worm hole. Mater with a surprise filling!

 

[fuzzi]

Thank you!

Hopefully when the tomatoes run out the greens will be close to ready. Cabbage, collards, mustard and broccoli. There might be a lull between.

I just tossed them a couple tomatoes. They don't mind the not so pretty ones.
One had a fruit worm hole. Mater with a surprise filling!

Like a Tootsie roll pop!

My last watermelons were overripe and froze in the refrigerator, so I cut them up and they will be distributed to the flock as long as they "keep".

The chick(en)s eat the seeds first!

 

[NanaK]

Yes! They always attack the seeds first. I do have a few pie pumpkins I grew mainly for them. I try to grow either pumpkins or one of the hard winter squash to give them as the garden changes from summer to fall stuff. They keep so well. Sometimes we eat some too.
The pumpkins and carrots will make their egg yolks really have good color. Greens will do it too. I love the orangey yolks.

Ok...they are kind of spoiled! They hear me coming up the path from the garden on my old noisy golf cart/trailer. They run to the door of the run and look at me like "what ya got???"

 

[fuzzi]

I have fed mine cantaloupe pulp with seeds, but I ran out of fruits. The tomatoes are almost done, the watermelon plants are dead.

I guess I could go back to buying grapes as a treat.

When I walk up to the coop with treats I say "Hello chicks!" in a high pitched voice...and the flock stampedes towards the door!

 

[fuzzi]

Photos of our setup back in the early 1990s. Eventually we extended the netting up to the roof of the carport, making it easy to stand up in the run. The chickens' door to the coop was closed and locked at night. When it was opened it became the ramp.

While doing some deep cleaning/organizing I found a cookie tin. When I wiped off the dust and opened it, I discovered something from 30 years ago...

These belonged to Ping, my Black Rosecomb rooster. I recall putting away a couple of the curled tail feathers, too, but I haven't seen them in years.

 

[fuzzi]

Martha is broody again. After I removed her from the nesting box and put her up on the roost she acted like a jellyfish.

Miz Broody wasn't sitting on a real egg, just the faux one. So I only collected two eggs today.

Interesting pattern on one of the eggs, looks like it's missing pigment: