Growing my little flock

[fuzzi]

Do what you believe is best for your flock.

I've been adding a little shredded cheese to the grape bits I bring in the afternoon. My flock goes bonkers for them. They'd stopped laying around December 1st, but within a few days of adding the cheese to their diet the pullets started laying again... coincidence?

 

[Iluveggers]

@DonyaQuick
I switched from all-flock to layer and I think egg quality is better as well. They also get a scoop of BOSS and whatever produce, dairy and meat scraps we have.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Do what you believe is best for your flock.

I've been adding a little shredded cheese to the grape bits I bring in the afternoon. My flock goes bonkers for them. They'd stopped laying around December 1st, but within a few days of adding the cheese to their diet the pullets started laying again... coincidence?

Interesting! I guess at least some cheese has vitamin D in it too, whereas the limestone/oyster shell certainly won't.

I switched from all-flock to layer and I think egg quality is better as well. They also get a scoop of BOSS and whatever produce, dairy and meat scraps we have.

Glad I'm not the only one with that observation! I just got a big bag of layer crumbles today so hopefully once I get my main flock transitioned back I'll be seeing consistent thick shells and strong membranes again, and no more random urgent need for extra calcium doses.

 

[Iluveggers]

Interesting! I guess at least some cheese has vitamin D in it too, whereas the limestone/oyster shell certainly won't.


Glad I'm not the only one with that observation! I just got a big bag of layer crumbles today so hopefully once I get my main flock transitioned back I'll be seeing consistent thick shells and strong membranes again, and no more random urgent need for extra calcium doses.

Hopefully it will improve enough! I switched to all-flock when the chicks moved in, and by about 14 weeks I think I started mixing in a few scoops of layer until the pullets were all old enough for the full switch.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Miss Chungus is her bouncy old self again. Escaping whenever I go in or out of the run...digging in the dirt in front of the house...trying to waltz away like there is no evidence of what she was just doing lol. After having been on just layer feed in the house and then moving up from a 1:1 to about a 3:2 ratio of layer to all flock once back outside for a few days, she laid an egg with a nice thick shell.

Unfortunately then I had two ladies lay eggs in weird places late yesterday for whatever reason, which then froze solid and cracked by the time I found them today. Never actually had that happen with eggs before, but it was much harder for anyone to hide eggs in the old, smaller setup so perhaps I just never missed one. A 12x16 shed is rather a large space if someone is sneaky about it, and Raven in particular is being tough to convince to use the nest boxes vs making her own nests in other random places in the shavins. At least the shells on those two seemed good despite being frozen/cracked. My current two nest boxes are pretty large...maybe the next one I build needs to be smaller/cozier to have better appeal to the pullets.

 

[fuzzi]

Frozen eggs still can be used.

 

[DonyaQuick]

A little green Raven egg with a first egg from Harley. I know there's a small percentage chance of brown eggs from the crosses that make olive eggers, but I will also now always be wondering whether Harley is actually an escapee from the barred rock bin that was right next door to the eggers at the store; she's got a big comb and brighter white shripes than the other 3 stripey eggers. Really wondering what color their eggs are going to be now!

Frozen eggs still can be used.

I did use one of them right away as soon as it was thawed, just made sure to cook it thoroughly. As for the other egg...it was actually only half a frozen egg, so I gave that a pass lol. Somebody had obviously explored the fact that it cracked when freezing and had an eggy popsicle snack.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Found another very first-egg-looking egg in a weird place tonight. Lighting hasn't been good enough for me to get a pic unfortunately. It's different from Harley's egg but, uh...definitely not green! Kind of more pink. I don't know who laid it, but very doubtful it was one of my older, well-established layers - I don't think they'd put a tiny egg in a random place at this point, they'd put it in the nest box since they all know what nest boxes are about. It's basically just Raven who won't use the boxes. So that means it was very likely another one of my "eggers," but also probably not Harley because I saw another of her eggs today. So that's one definite brown egger and very likely one more pinkish-to-brown egger. Is it possible I actually ended up getting 4 barred rocks and only 2 olive eggers (the black ones)??? I guess we'll see if down the line I ever get more than 2 green eggs per day.

 

[DonyaQuick]

OMG...I'm starting to think I only have one green egger, not even two. Just Raven LOL. This is a Harley egg on the left with what I'm pretty sure is a Hobbit egg. Hobbit is the other solid black pullet and she has a few scraggly leg/foot feathers, so there's no way she's a barred rock mix-up.

It's a cool-looking egg for sure, but that ain't green! I've found three white splotched eggs so far, so the patterning seems consistent.

I don't really care that much about egg color, I just hope that if I really did end up with a bunch of things that aren't actually olive eggers that they grow into happy, hardy hens of whatever type they are, which is all I was really after when trying to get olive eggers in the first place.

 

[Iluveggers]

OMG...I'm starting to think I only have one green egger, not even two. Just Raven LOL. This is a Harley egg on the left with what I'm pretty sure is a Hobbit egg. Hobbit is the other solid black pullet and she has a few scraggly leg/foot feathers, so there's no way she's a barred rock mix-up.
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It's a cool-looking egg for sure, but that ain't green! I've found three white splotched eggs so far, so the patterning seems consistent.

I don't really care that much about egg color, I just hope that if I really did end up with a bunch of things that aren't actually olive eggers that they grow into happy, hardy hens of whatever type they are, which is all I was really after when trying to get olive eggers in the first place.

My Olive Egger ended up laying chocolate brown. It’s a pretty egg, and I was a teensy bit disappointed. Luckily somehow the 3 BYM chicks my hen hatched last year lay green eggs. I just want happy healthy hens also, but different colors are nice…seems olive eggs are not a guarantee.