Harvesting

Both of my hens are now starting to lay eggs, though one is firing them out more often than the other. Lucretia is being a bitch, while Butterworth is quietly going to town, providing me with about an egg a day.  Awersome!

They have been eating mostly pellet feed - a mishmash of vitamins, plant protein, and whatever else chickens eat (souls?), and I wanted to give them some other stuff to eat as well.  Some digging around and I found this rad chart from backyardchickens.com that has what to feed them and what not to feed them.  It's good info and can really be summed up to this: birds will eat most anything, so don't give them things you wouldn't eat yourself.  In case you like details, here's the link to the Chicken Treat Chart.  

This post written while listening to some old shite ... 

Chicken Update

More than a few of you have been asking for an update on my chickens, and I haven't been doing one simply because my birds are boring.  They hadn't laid eggs, all they do is get fat and eat - until a few days ago when one of them finally popped out their first egg!

We had been having this new issue, where the girls would knock their water feeder around so hard it would spill all the water out, which meant we would have to fill the stupid thing a coupe times a day to ensure they had enough water. On New Years Eve night, my girlfriend goes out to water them and comes back yelling "Egg!"  At first I thought she was making an inappropriate but hilarious joke about her egg, but then I caught on and ran outside with her to see the most glorious sight - a small brown egg lying in the dirt.

I grabbed it (it was still warm!) and we skipped inside to check the thing out.  Up until that point, the birds had been with us since the first part of May.  Hens are able to being laying around their 22nd week, but some can take up to 10 months, not to mention most shut down egg production during the winter.  So we were sort of getting used to not seeing any output from them, which is why the egg got us more excited than it should have.  Plus we were drunk.

After a debate on if we should eat it ( I wasn't sure if the first egg would be some nasty warm-up try or not), we cracked it and dropped it into a pan.  The aroma was strong, much more so than the "cage-free organic" eggs we currently buy.  It's hard to explain, but it was almost musky smelling.  Farmhouse-like.  And the flavor was intense!  Unlike any egg I have had before.

Then - two days later, another one!  Same size - small - but it was an egg!  Proof that our birds are doing something, which is all you really want after months of buying feed, giving them treats like worms and things, cleaning up their poop.

Mrs. Butterworth and her egg.

  Anyway, that is the latest from Chicken Town.  I have the second egg in the fridge, waiting for Saturday morning when I can fry that sucker up and truly enjoy the second most expensive egg I have ever had.

Fowl

Long-time coming, but I'm getting around to posting an update on my chickens. You can all exhale now.

A couple of months ago I got two chicks from the local feed store on a whim, and they have survived pretty well.  My buddy Justin and my buddy Dave came over to help me build the coop that they will be in until the racoons get them or I run out of money.

After browsing on BackyardChickens.com, I decided to build a variant on the Dutch Hen House.  It seemed the most simple without looking like a rundown shed, and, since I only had two chickens, I didn't need something larger.

Justin did the basic design and the three of us went to Home Depot for materials.  All in all it cost about $190, and I had some wood leftover.  Not too bad.  I have zero pictures of the building process - I was too busy trying to remember how to swing a hammer.  But despite Dave's squiggly cutting, I think we made a pretty rad chicken coop.  Thanks to those guys!

So, when you have chicks, you keep them protected and under a lamp for 5 weeks, then they go in the coop.  All this time I was really concerned about the noise level - I didn't need the neighbors throwing stones at my birds, much like I do to their dogs when they don't shut up.  I have to say, these things are much quieter than I thought they would be.  No noise, save for some low clucking when I get in there to clean the poop or refill the food.  I'm digging on them, so far.

If you are looking at getting some chickens, check out Backyardchickens.com - they are a great resource and a nice community.

Here it is, my chicken coop!

And from the side. 

Note the flag, lest you forget where you are ...

The side door opens, like so. The string

is to pull the inside door up, allowing the girls

to get out of the coop and into the run.

A better view, with the perch there and the laying boxes 

to the left, where, eventually, they will lay eggs.

Butterworth and Lucretia at around 12 weeks. 

I let space under the coop for them to hang out in, and 

it's their favorite place to be. 

Awkward teen years.