Petersons Peep's Peck-Peck Painfully Pecks Poor Person

File this one under ouch.

The other day, I was checking on the birds as I normally do. One of the white leghorns tried to get out as I was standing at the door, so I picked it up and held it for a few minutes. Both the roosters came running to the door as usual to see who had taken one of their hens. When I put the chicken down, Peck-Peck pecked me hard in the back of the hand and drew blood. How dare I hold one of his hens???

So the poor person who was painfully pecked by Peck-Peck was me. That Peck-Peck is one mean son-of-a-gun.

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.

The Incredible Edible Egg

Behold! OUR FIRST EGG!

We had an amazing surprise when we checked the chicken coop yesterday: our very first egg!
I was so excited that I screamed out "We got an egg!" to no one in particular quite like a maniac. The kids came running and couldn't wait to take turns looking at the egg where it was laid in the nesting box and then holding it. Once we had taken loads of pictures, we called a couple of friends to spread the news. It really was a big day.










The egg did get cracked slightly on one end when it dropped into the nesting box, but still it is a beautiful thing. And I am so proud that the hen (a white leghorn by the way) knew to lay it in the nesting box!

Safe and Sound

Just wanted to update you that the three missing chicks made it through the night safe and sound. I found them scratching in the yard the next morning about 20 feet away from the coop. They seemed completely unaware of the sleeplessness they caused me. Typical!

I attribute their survival in part to the big black dog. We've been letting him sleep in the garage (with the door open) at night so he is free to come and go. I think having a wandering 80-pound dog roaming the yard keeps a few of the predators at bay.

You may now remove your yellow ribbons from the old oak tree.
Phew!

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.