Farm fresh eggs are back at the Martin Madhouse! Those of you who know Joe & I well or are regular readers of the blog know that we set up a coop and got 4 hens last spring. Sadly...they became a coyote's dinner in July. (Remember that crazy post?) Fortunately, the same farmer in Ellington we got our chickens from in April did another sale in October so we were able to get 4 new 18 week old hens! In the colder months, hens don't always lay eggs so when late November rolled around and we still hadn't seen any we were getting antsy.
You can do things to encourage your chickens to keep up egg production all winter long, like putting a light in their coop to mimic daylight. You want them to get about 12 hours of light, but you don't want to keep the light on all night because that might keep them awake and they won't get enough sleep. We rigged a little lightbulb up in the ceiling of the coop and put it on a timer so they get light from 5-8 am and 4-8 pm to help them out. You also need to make sure your chickens have constant access to water, regardless if they're laying or not. You can get a heated chicken waterer for about $80, or you can get a big heated dog bowl for about $18. Once we saw the water freeze overnight for the first time, we swapped in the heated bowl and it seems to be working out just fine. We did all this prep work about a month ago and still the days went on eggless.
You might read this blog and think, hm...chickens are kind of cool and I like eggs...maybe I'll get some chickens! Well, fresh eggs are definitely cool but chickens really aren't. They're super dirty birds and not necessarily the most friendly (although ours seem pretty docile so far). Having to go out in the freezing cold and clean up chicken poop and fill their food and water when you're not getting eggs out of the deal is NOT COOL. But finally, FINALLY last Friday there it was...an egg! Saturday 2 eggs, Sunday back down to one, Monday and Tuesday back to 2! I'm pretty confident that 2 out of our 4 little hens are happily laying eggs daily now. This makes me a very happy chicken farmer!
Hopefully we'll have all four laying within a week or so and we'll be back up to full egg production. When we are, if you're nice to us, there's a strong change that you will get some eggs laid with love by the Martin Hens!
Showing posts with label free range chickens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free range chickens. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Free Range(ish) Chickens
Our chickens are free range...ish. We keep them cooped up (get it, GET IT?!) during the day when we're at work and then my husband, Joe let's them out around 4 when he gets home and they come back to the coop on their own around dusk. We keep them in their coop mainly to protect them from things like this:
(yes that's a bear roaming our yard in suburban Connecticut) and also so that we can go wrangle them back to our yard when our neighbors from the abutting condo complex come to warn us that our chickens are wandering in the streets. For the first few months they would be sleeping soundly in their nesting boxes within the coop when we went out to check on them around 9pm. The last few weeks they have been roosting/sleeping on the top of their coop (they like to roost on the highest point...no idea why) so my husband goes out around 9, picks them up one by one and "scoots" them into the coop. Tonight he's is working the night shift which happens pretty often and usually without much warning, so for the first time I had to go out and "scoot" the ladies into their coop. It was a scene. For starters they weren't sleeping peacefully like my husband said they would be, they were awake and they were looking at me. They were also laying right next to each other almost overlapping their wings so it was very difficult to grab one without disturbing the others. After about 2 minutes of hemming and hawing and poking at them just enough to really rile them up; I grabbed one. Not a tight enough grip, she flapped her wings right out of my hands almost immediately and landed on the ground right in front of the coop door. Then I really did just have to scoot her in and she went pretty peacefully. The next three were increasingly difficult and the last one kept turning around in a circle following my movements so that I couldn't grab her from behind and it's pretty hard to grab a hen that's staring straight at you...I couldn't even figure out where to grab her! Finally I nabbed her from behind and after she flapped out and around the coop for a minute, she wandered in the door on her own. This entire endeavor probably lasted 15 minutes and was enough for me to break a serious sweat and get a foot cramp from the stress of it all...I hope Joe is off the night shift soon or else our hens might not be free ranging at all for a while!
(yes that's a bear roaming our yard in suburban Connecticut) and also so that we can go wrangle them back to our yard when our neighbors from the abutting condo complex come to warn us that our chickens are wandering in the streets. For the first few months they would be sleeping soundly in their nesting boxes within the coop when we went out to check on them around 9pm. The last few weeks they have been roosting/sleeping on the top of their coop (they like to roost on the highest point...no idea why) so my husband goes out around 9, picks them up one by one and "scoots" them into the coop. Tonight he's is working the night shift which happens pretty often and usually without much warning, so for the first time I had to go out and "scoot" the ladies into their coop. It was a scene. For starters they weren't sleeping peacefully like my husband said they would be, they were awake and they were looking at me. They were also laying right next to each other almost overlapping their wings so it was very difficult to grab one without disturbing the others. After about 2 minutes of hemming and hawing and poking at them just enough to really rile them up; I grabbed one. Not a tight enough grip, she flapped her wings right out of my hands almost immediately and landed on the ground right in front of the coop door. Then I really did just have to scoot her in and she went pretty peacefully. The next three were increasingly difficult and the last one kept turning around in a circle following my movements so that I couldn't grab her from behind and it's pretty hard to grab a hen that's staring straight at you...I couldn't even figure out where to grab her! Finally I nabbed her from behind and after she flapped out and around the coop for a minute, she wandered in the door on her own. This entire endeavor probably lasted 15 minutes and was enough for me to break a serious sweat and get a foot cramp from the stress of it all...I hope Joe is off the night shift soon or else our hens might not be free ranging at all for a while!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)