Chicken Update

This week we added two new hens to our flock. Not that I need seven hens. A friend had to give most of her flock of hens away since she was moving, and she offered me two. They just started laying, and the thought of getting eggs a month or two early was a little more than I could resist. So I Monday evening I drove over to her home and picked out two pretty speckled brown and white hens. I know this isn't the greatest photo I've ever taken of a chicken, but it will have to do for now! I'll take some better ones later on.

It took a little while for my California Whites to adjust to the new hens. The first evening and the next day they pecked and harassed the little brown and white hens. It was pretty hard to watch, especially since the new hens wouldn't do anything to stand up for themselves. I didn't know what to do besides wait it out. I was fairly confident that in a couple of days things would settle down and they would get along. That is what ended up happening. By the third day everyone was pretty much getting along just fine.

It also took the new hens a couple of days to get used to the fact that they have to stay in our yard when we let them out of the coop. Terry and let let our hens out every evening to scratch in the in garden and get their fill of worms and bugs. My California Whites somehow got the message a long time ago that they need to stay in our back yard (it isn't fenced in) and they don't wander off. The first evening we let the brown and white hens out with the rest of the flock, it didn't take long for one to completely disapear, even though we were keeping what we thought was a close eye on them.

After a frantic half hour search with no results, a nieghbor three houses down stopped by and said that one of our chickens was wandering along the road by his house. Sure enough, there was the hen, peacefully pecking away in on the edge of road. Thankfully this hen is pretty sedate and I was able to just pick her up and bring her home (if it had been a California white, I would have never been able to catch her!). They started wandering off a couple of more times, but we were able to shoo them back on to our property, and the past couple of days they seem to be getting the hang of staying in our back yard.

I really would hate to have to keep them cooped up all the time. Chickens really enjoy being able to roam a bit and eat bugs. They seem to think eating bugs is the main reason for there existance. The other day there was a big swarm of bitting red ants near our back porch. I let the hens out, and within 10 minutes they found the ants, and in another 10 minutes there wasn't an ant left in site. The chickens acted like they were in heaven!

I am constantly surprised how picky my hens are. I remember the chickens we had growing eating anything and every thing in site. They were a totally disaster in the garden. These hens, on the other hand won't thouch most vegetables. They won't eat peaches, pears, tomatoes, or most of the left over food scraps that I put out for them. They do melon, cooked squash, and anything that is made with grain (bread, rice, oatmeal, pudding, that sort of thing.) I found out yesterday when Terry's grandchildren were over that they totally love soft taco shells. Liam and Finn had a lot of fun feeding them the tacos. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more---the chickens or the boys!

We have been getting two eggs a day--two medium size brown eggs. That has been really nice.