Don't Cry Over Spilt ... Eggs?

Today was our first three egg day! The white leghorns are reliably pumping out about an egg a day each. Not only did we get three eggs, but we got our first really big one. So far all of our eggs have been about 1.75 ounces, which classifies them as medium. Today, one of the eggs was a whopping 2.25 ounces, which would sell in a grocery store as an EXTRA LARGE!

My excitement was short lived, however. Liam, who means well and is very excited about this egg business, couldn't keep his hands off the eggs and dropped our very first extra large.

Though we couldn't put poor Humpty back together again, Hoagie the black lab was very excited for a mid-morning snack.


Now I gotta go mop because my kitchen smells like egg. Blech.

Double Your Pleasure

As Rob Base says: "It takes two to make a thing go right, it takes to two to make it out of sight." When it comes to eggs, I have to say I agree.

When I checked the chicken coop this afternoon, I discovered two eggs that weren't there this morning. Crazy! So now I know that at least two of my white leghorns are laying.

I was just reading that the leghorn lays about 250-280 eggs its first year, and I have three of them! That's a whopping 750-840 eggs that will be dropped over the next year. And let's not forget that I have five other hens that haven't started laying yet. Anyone want eggs? I'm going to have a lot of them...
Drop me an email if you want some. Seriously!

And I don't know about you, but I like the whopper, *&(* the big mac.
You just gotta love Rob Base if for no other reason than the cheese factor.

Woo-Hoo Number 2

Just wanted to quickly report that I found our second egg today. I am happy to report that this egg was not cracked, so I suspect someone will be eating it for breakfast tomorrow morning. The egg was not in the nesting box, however, so I will have to investigate how to encourage the hens to lay where I want them to. More on that in a later blog post.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon

We're not having a good night at ole Peterson's Peeps:
We're missing three chickens.

The kids let the chickens out this afternoon to scratch in the yard and forgot to prop open the door to the coop. I was in and out of the house and it didn't occur to me to make sure the door was still open.

Normally, with the door open, the chickens put themselves to bed for the night, and I go out at dusk to lock everyone up safe and sound. Because the door was closed, they couldn't get into the coop. I found four of the chickens (the two roosters and two hens) standing at the door of the coop trying to get in through the chicken wire. I found one of the buffs sleeping on a foot-high rock and another one roosting in a nearby tree. The last bird, a white leghorn, was sitting on top of the monkey bars on the kid's swingset (how she got up almost 9 feet in the air is beyond me). Right now, I am still down two white leghorns and one dominque.

I have searched high and low looking for the three remaining missing, but have had no luck. Either they are hiding/roosting for the night and will be back in the morning or they made for a nice dinner for a lucky raccoon or fox. Let's hope it's the former and not the latter. I don't know how the kids will handle losing three all at once. I'm pretty upset by it -- and angry too as this was preventable.

I'll update you in the morning.

OMG, TDD

The darned dog just tried to eat one of my white leghorns. It was awful, and my heart is still pumping like crazy. I think the bird is ok. It seems like my wrist got the worst of it. I just don't know what I am going to do with the beast. Ugh.

Blowin' in the Wind

Sometimes my kids come up with really funny ideas! Just this afternoon, the chickens were running around the yard and the kids were on the swings. Flynn thought it might be fun to have the chickens play along by roosting on the trapeze bars. The chickens kindly cooperated (Google and an as-yet unnamed white leghorn). They liked the roosting, except for when the kids started to swing the bar. Then, not so much.

All Quiet on the Western Front

The chicks really are no longer ... they are all grown up! They've been outside for a few weeks now and are thriving. Surprisingly, we have not lost a single chick apart from the small accident we had way back on day two. As a complete novice, I was really expecting to lost at least 25% of my flock in the first couple of months, but everyone is doing well. Let's hope I didn't just put the whammy on me.

Life in the coop is much more peaceful than in the brooder. The birds have more room to stretch. There are roosts in the hen house. AND the chickies just love scratching in the dirt. My kids will even look for slugs to feed them. Yummy.

I love this picture. It's Liam holding one of the buffs. Something about both their expressions crack me up.

By the way, we've named some of our buffs -- Butterscotch, Ginger, and Mary Anne. I think one of the White Leghorns will end up being Mrs. Howell! All this is lost on my kids, but it does tickle me!

Choosing Breeds

Today my youngest had a play date with two other three-year-old boys. The three had a blast manhandling the little chicks (no one was hurt!). I was explaining why our chicks all look different and how I choose the four breeds: White Leghorn, Buff Orpington, Speckled Sussex, and Dominique (which are pictured at the top of this post).

When I selected the breeds, I looked for a combination of good egg layers, docile temperaments, and cold hardy birds. I wasn't too bothered about egg color (nutritionally they are all the same) or having rare or unusual birds. One tool I found helpful was the Which Chicken breed selector tool on mypetchicken.com.

Two of the breeds -- Buff Orpington and Speckled Sussex, matched all three of my criteria. I choose the Buffs because I just fell in love with their color and how poofy they looked.

Bill picked out the Speckled Sussex because he thought they looked cool.



We chose the White Leghorns based on their reputation as being great prolific layers. The White Leghorns are said to be nervous, but so far they seem the most mellow of all our chicks. By the way, it's pronounced "leggern." No Foghorn Leghorn here.

My oldest, Flynn, chose the Dominiques. He was originally drawn to Barred Plymouth Rocks because he liked how they looked with their alternating bars of black and white feathers. When we started investigating the Barred Rocks further, we found Dominiques who look similar but are a heritage breed that is critically endangered. As soon as Flynn heard that they were endangered, he was hooked. He takes great pride in doing his part to protect nature and helping an endangered breed really appealed to his sense of stewardship.

Three of our breeds produce brown eggs. Only the White Leghorns produce white eggs. If you grew up in New England you'll probably remember the commercial "brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh." Apparently the ad campaign was so successful that in New England brown eggs outsell white eggs while every where else in the US the reverse is true. I have to admit that I always buy white eggs from the super market. I have no idea why...maybe I wanted foreign exotic eggs from far away instead of those boring ole local podunk ones??? Apparently the advertising didn't work on me.

They're Here!

I finally picked up the chicks this morning!

I kept farmer's hours this morning by getting up at five to fetch my chicks from the regional distribution center of the US Post Office. Luckily, it's only the next town over. When I finally found Door 15 in the behemouth of a post office, I found out that the chicks had already been shipped out to my local office. Back into the car I ran to pick up the chicks at post office #2. They were in this tiny box, peeping away madly. So incredibly cute! Of course, I later read that loud chirping means the poor things are under distress.

I got them home and couldn't wait to check them out. My husband, Bill, also got a chance to peek in on them before he headed off to the airport for a four-day stint doing booth duty in Lost Wages, NV.

We ordered four different breeds: 7 White Leghorns, 7 Buff Orpingtons, 6 Dominiques, and 6 Speckled Sussex. The chicks all look different, ranging from light yellow to black with a white patch on the head, so it's easy to tell the breeds apart.

Next step, onto the brooder once it's heated up!