Ribh's D'Coopage

[Ribh]

If anyone is interested PoulChick is trying to hatch abandoned eggs in a microwave/oven & crockpot. Fascinating.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/urgent-help-what-do-you-think.1308566

 

[Ribh]

At the risk of sounding completely loopy...This is how our laying system works. First thing in the morning I let most of my big girls into the outside run. When someone wants to lay they call & wait by the gate. I go out & open the gate. The hen in question usually has an escort ~ normally just one other hen but sometimes multiples. Sometimes several hens are ready to lay @ the same time & share a nesting box. When I collect the eggs I let everyone back into the big pen. This morning Soda [BR] called first. I let her in on her own. For some reason she's a pretty unpopular hen all round. I let her out & she traded places with Pebbles[BAB], who is businesslike & a bantam & her eggs are pretty unmistakable. Hepzibah [BR] lays most days ~ usually really early but some days she's a bit later & occasionally she has a rest day. Today she was late & I was held up getting to her so she was pretty frantic to get through the gate & up into the nesting box. She's a high ranking hen & everyone except the Top Hen & the mutant barred rock escorted her into the pen. When I opened the gate the older girls shot through & everyone else opted to stay in the coop ~ & I collected TWO eggs. I have NO idea who the new layer is. I know it's not the BA. She is having a really heavy molt, has fowl pox & is a little underweight. I can really feel her keelbone when I pick her up ~ & yes, I am keeping a weather eye on her.

It can't be the mutant BR as she wasn't in that pen. One of the Favorelles was but the only hen looking even close to coming on the lay is Ha'penny [Campine] & they are supposed to lay white eggs. Here are the last few days eggs.

The back row is Unknown, BR, BR, BR, Unknown.
The front row is BR [that's Hepzibah who has always laid a delicate tinted egg], bantam, BR, bantam, BR. All the eggs are shades of brown! The new one is quite dark & I'm not supposed to have another brown layer.

Now in a sense, it doesn't matter. I do, however, like to keep an eye on my layers & make sure they get that little bit of extra TLC to keep them in top notch form. Does anyone have an idea?a

 

[rjohns39]

Evening Jeannie

 

[Kris5902]

Sounds like your girls have you very well trained for taking care of them! I haven’t a clue as to who may be your new layer... they are probably quite pleased with themselves at keeping you guessing. I wish my girls would share nesting box nicely. My Barnvelder that lays the small egg takes a long time doing in and acts almost broody, she’s a nestbox hog and creates a lineup, sometimes the others end up laying in the run, and yesterday one of the Sapphire girls was in pecking her quite sternly to GET OUT!

I’m upgrading their nest box tomorrow, I made one up yesterday but gave it to the girls in with Chickie Hawk as they are more prone to trying to escape out the egg door as I’m collecting and my “I Hate Chickens!” Mother is going to collect eggs for me today while I’m in town.

 

[Ribh]

Evening Jeannie

Hey, Bob. Good day?

 

[rjohns39]

Morning Jeannie

 

[Ribh]

Sounds like your girls have you very well trained for taking care of them! I haven’t a clue as to who may be your new layer... they are probably quite pleased with themselves at keeping you guessing. I wish my girls would share nesting box nicely. My Barnvelder that lays the small egg takes a long time doing in and acts almost broody, she’s a nestbox hog and creates a lineup, sometimes the others end up laying in the run, and yesterday one of the Sapphire girls was in pecking her quite sternly to GET OUT!

I’m upgrading their nest box tomorrow, I made one up yesterday but gave it to the girls in with Chickie Hawk as they are more prone to trying to escape out the egg door as I’m collecting and my “I Hate Chickens!” Mother is going to collect eggs for me today while I’m in town.

There's one in every flock! *sigh* Hepzibah is my nest hog. lol Luckily for me the other girls will just climb over her & get in the box with her, sometimes 3 together. Four is 1 hen too many! They used to line up waiting but as she wouldn't budge they changed tactics.

Yeah, the result of integration & 2 completely untrustworthy Campines. Mind you, one reason for having chooks was so I'd get off my butt more. lol So much of what I do is stationary so having to get up & deal with the chooks is good for me. Once my boys extend the run properly I won't have to do it so much because the campines will be able to go out with everyone else. They are quite mad.

Hope your town day went well. Why doesn't your mother like chooks? Agreed they can get a bit smelly but overall they are rather serene creatures.

 

[Kris5902]

Hope your town day went well. Why doesn't your mother like chooks? Agreed they can get a bit smelly but overall they are rather serene creatures.

Town day is progressing well... As to my mothers unreasonable hatred of poultry, I really have no clue. She likes the sheep, which I find disgusting most times. Too bad for her that chickens are what I plan on adding to the Farm, I suppose. I so t generally ask her to do anything with them, but I do wish she wouldn’t complain about them so much. She says they are smelly, disgusting, and she doesn’t think they are pretty. Sometimes I wonder if I’m adopted.

 

[Ribh]

Town day is progressing well... As to my mothers unreasonable hatred of poultry, I really have no clue. She likes the sheep, which I find disgusting most times. Too bad for her that chickens are what I plan on adding to the Farm, I suppose. I so t generally ask her to do anything with them, but I do wish she wouldn’t complain about them so much. She says they are smelly, disgusting, and she doesn’t think they are pretty. Sometimes I wonder if I’m adopted.

My mother isn't fond of chickens either ~ with some reason. lol She was farm bred but boarded with her grandparents for High School & apparently my Great Grandpappy bred show Australorps & GGP was fonder of them than his grandchildren.

I took her a couple dozen of our eggs last visit & now she's saying how hard it has been to return to regular eggs after ours ~ even free range ones! lol No pleasing the woman. And she thinks Lavender is pretty. Pretty useless! lol She is a great lump of a bird & perfectly happy to swan around producing nothing useful. Good thing I didn't buy her for her productivity.

 

[rjohns39]

If you're up for a funny story, here's one... When I was very young, I spent every other weekend at my maternal grandmother's house. She had chickens, and I loved fried bacon and eggs at her house. Grandpa cooked the eggs, they were nearly burnt on the bottom (crunchy) and the yolks were bright orange and full on liquid. So a couple of pieces of toast three or four strips of bacon and two eggs... I was in heaven. Mom and Dad would cook me store bought eggs at home and I'd yak. It made them so mad. And it was something I didn't understand until growing my own eggs. The texture and flavor of the eggs was sooo much different. I couldn't stomach the store bought eggs. But fresh eggs well that was a different story.