A few weeks ago I posted pictures of my chickens and said I hoped they would start laying soon. Yesterday when I was outside I heard a hen clucking happily. I knew it was the "I'm proud I laid an egg" sound. I haven't got an egg in about a month, so I was excited. I ran to see who it was. To my surprise, it was one of my Buff Orpington hens.
It's my first egg from my babies I raised. They are about 5 months old. I'm sure she was especially proud because it was her first egg ever. It's pretty small compared to the store bought eggs we have. But, I'm sure the eggs will get bigger after a while. I'm just so happy the laying has started. Maybe I won't have to buy many more eggs.
Earlier yesterday we noticed we were missing two guineas. I was hoping they just fell behind the pack and would join them later. That is until I saw this:
Guinea feathers were everywhere. They free range now, so I'm not sure what happened. We looked everywhere to see if we could find anything. It had rained pretty bad the night before, so we could not find any tracks near the feathers. We are pretty sure some type of predator killed them. We have woods all around us, so we are not sure what it was.
We did have a dog outside that would bark if something came up, but she broke her chain, so she was in the house when it happened. We put her back outside last night. Hopefully she will warn off anything that might want to attack them. My husband wants to get a .22 rifle to shoot anything that might come up. Not sure if that is going to happen, though. Since we aren't sure when they were taken, I don't think a .22 would have helped anyway.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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8 comments:
Your comment about your son asking if jojo was "butt naked" cracked me up!
I think some chickens just lay small eggs, right? I love fresh eggs. I don't mind having to wash the poop off. :)
Your egg looks yummy !!! I love fresh eggs. Sorry to hear you lost two of your chickens.
Maybe the dog being outside will help. I know my Aunt has two dogs out during the summer. They have wolves. It has helped!
Can't wait to see the rest of your eggs. Wish we lived closer, I would be over there buying some!
Blessings-
Rachelle
Just shared the pic of the chicken egg. The boys loved that! :) Thanks for the farm lessons. :)
Woo hoo!!!!!!! Eggs!!!!
Sorry to hear about your guineas. You know, the same thing happened to our ducks last year. We just found them dead on the pond bank...not mangled or anything, just dead. We wondered if they got into something like ant killer or fertilizer. It was around the same time our old neighbors were moving things out of their barn, and thought maybe they spilt something on the ground and the ducks ate it. Our new neighbors have gotten some new ducks....but it's not the same...they're not ours :(
Take care,
Vic
Oh no, I'm sorry that something killed your hens. :(
Wow- I bet you are so excited to get an egg! I am sure you will have many eggs soon enough. Sorry to hear that you lost two chickens.
Toni
http://thehappyhousewife.com
My three babies are about three weeks away from laying and I'm getting really anxious! The eggs do get bigger as the chickens get older. In a few weeks they should be normal sized. Their shells may be a little weird at first also but that straightens out also.
Do you lock the chickens/guineas up at night? Ours freerange during the day but we lock them up at night. I hope you figure it out before any more disappear.
Jill
Nancy, thanks for visiting my blog! I just got guineas about 6 weeks ago. They started free ranging about a week ago, but would come back and fly into their coop. A couple nights ago they didn't come back from the field where they like to hunt for bugs. Then 24 hrs later 3 came back. Last night one came back injured. So, I am thinking something got them.
I am hoping to get chickens next year. My husband is fixing up an old milk house for me, but it won't be done this year.
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