Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/

and yes, Mr Rooster must help with morale (like the drones in the beehive, they have a purpose other than impregnating a queen….)

Kimberly, mostly I get mine from Fedco and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. Both of those places signed the Safe Seed Pledge and are Monsanto-free. See my links above (seeds/trees) to find ‘em. AND: how funny: I told you they’d freak out! Our littlest bird, Featherfoot (a Belgian d’Uccles mille fleur; she’s gorgeous) puts on quite a show when she leaves the coop each morning. BUT: I would come running for warm oatmeal, wouldn’t you?

Serina, tell them to get on it! I wish you good egg vibes from my girls to yours.

Amanda, don’t forget Rebbie, the forgotten 8th Jackson. The bantam rooster is Michael Jackson, and although that sounds like, well, taboo stuff, these three are impossible to tell apart…but can all dance and sing.

MC, can’t you see why I love them so? They’re really worth 1000 laughs a day. And no, just some friends who love eggs.

Hope things aren’t too darned chilly for you down there, pd! You know, so nothing precious freezes beyond saving. Good luck with the egg thing; check out Local Harvest.org and maybe you can find someone near you.

Lucky you!!!! ENJOY!!!!

I broke down and bought a dozen eggs right before the holidays as we were down to one a day if that and I thought we might need them. Suddenly on the Solstice we had THREE eggs (out of six birds) and they have mostly kept it up since then. I had given them a pep talk on how it was all uphill from here, sunlight-wise and I guess they listened! Now I have way too many in my fridge again…

Stef, they sure started out tiny. Now, they’re more like half-sized. Still adorable though. The yolks, surprisingly, aren’t 1/2 sized more like 2/3rds. These ratios I find terribly interesting, considering that last year we had goose, turkey, guinea and chicken eggs to eat: the yolk/white issue varies with each bird. BUT yeah, our old girls do moult; they’re smart and actually do it right when it starts to get cold, like Oct. Or maybe not so smart because they shiver through Nov. Anyway, the old biddies are in fine feathered form now. And: I have never killed my old girls, just let them keep going.

Selina, well, they’re a lot hardier than you would think. I have a pretty big coop and a lot of birds; if you have a small coop and only a few birds then their ability to keep it warm is actually pretty good. Straw is a great insulator, surprisingly; on their dirt floor in the coop I have a good 12-18″ of straw. I just let the poop pile up over the winter and the decomp process actually keeps things warm too (and no, it’s not overwhelmingly stinky, just certainly barn-y). I started with 5, lost two to hawks, then had 3 over my first winter; we got by on their eggs just fine. Then, I got 5 more birds, and lost one to natural causes; 7 birds still kept us in enough eggs for ourselves and a few other families. Now, well, now it’s nuts. And they’ll lay their entire lives. A 7 year old hen, though, might only lay 20 eggs during her last year. It becomes a numbers game then if you keep unproductive hens around. Chickens are cheap entertainment, so I’ll keep the malingerers…they tend to teach the younger birds the ropes, anyway.

OG, yeah, it does slow down: In Oct., I think I was maybe getting 2 eggs a day! That’s still 14 in a week which is plenty… I know cleaning out the coops is not exactly the funnest thing but that is brown gold as far as the garden is concerned

And I would only have egg laying hens. How many years can you get out of an egg laying hen?

No roosters here. And I have frozen eggs hanging around.

I LOVE the new photo in the header!