The birds are 6 months old. We still have 13 hens and 1 rooster. We know their patterns now and they know ours. When I take Joey out in the morning they come running to the fence. They know I am bringing some sort of food scrap. Usually I feed them scraps of strawberries, cucumbers, bananas, tomatoes or carrots. Joey loves cucumbers and carrots too. The other morning he reached his paw through the fence and pushed a cucumber right up to the opening. He waited patiently until the Barred Rock came over to eat the cucumber. He then pounced at the fence and scared her. She jumped up and squawked and Joey trotted away proud of himself. If only I had a video!!

The rooster is quite annoying to me. I know he is only being a rooster but he can stop coming after my boots! It normally happens in the evening when they are all beginning to roost. The hens are all roosting up high and he is patrolling the ground floor. If we have to go in to fill water or feed he has to come over and peck at our boots. Some days it’s harder than others! I take a rake with me every time, just in case I need to swat him. He has chased me out of the coop once, I try not to turn my back on him. The other Sunday he was magically out of the fence. We have NO idea how his big body could fly but it obviously did. Joey helped coral him back into the coop with us. That was an eventful morning to say the least!!

This is a Red laying an egg. She gets in, lays an egg and then leaves.

This is a broody Leghorn. She does not leave this nesting box. She is filthy dirty, her comb is  flopped over her eye, she has stopped producing eggs and we have to physically lift her out of here to eat or drink. Once she is out she puffs herself up real big, makes weird noises and tries to run right back in. I try to wait around to watch her eat and drink. She is completely broody, only wants to lay on an egg and become a mother. Just the other day we lifted her up and she was laying on 5 brown eggs! She lays white eggs! We are constantly going into the coop to take the eggs and kick her out of her box. We are hoping this stops soon and we don’t have to put her in a separate area so she has no contact with any eggs.

On average we get about 10 eggs a day. I have been saving the shells to make grit. I rinsed the eggshells under warm water, laid them on a baking sheet and cooked them at 350 degrees for 20 min. This is supposed to kill off any bacteria and get the “egg” taste out so the chickens won’t start eating their eggs. I then crushed the eggs up real small and put it in their grit feeder. I have read about this method on line. It is supposed to give them back their own calcium and is full of nutrients. We will see how this goes.

If I am going to cook with eggs, I have to crack them in a bowl to see how many yolks I get. This egg below on the right ended up having 2 yolks in it. For some reason in about every 2 dozen we are getting a double yolker. I have not done too much research on this but plan to study up and see why this is happening. I have seen double yolks from our brown and white eggs. The tan and darker brown eggs are just regular eggs! I do cringe when I see a massive eggs like this, poor hen!