Early this year we decided it might be nice to keep a few chickens for egg purposes (we really love eggs and eat a lot of them) and, you know, the eat-local-eat-well thing. So my husband Dave and his best friend Graham (who lives across the street from us, married to my cousin, Jenna!) set about building a chicken coop in the backyard. Graham and Jenna were also interested in the idea of having fresh eggs so we went in on this adventure together! Graham and Dave did all the hard work, while I researched chickens and breeds and all the fun stuff ;)
We got our chickens as pullets (teenagers) near the end of August, and have been waiting patiently (and impatiently!) since then for our first egg. From my studies I learned that chickens need a certain amount of daylight per day to trigger the hormone that causes the egg to start forming and therefore be laid, so egg production decreases/leaves all together in the winter. I was starting to get worried that they wouldn't start laying soon enough, and we'd be stuck without our eggs until spring!
The breeds we have are: 1 Rhode Island Red, 1 Buff Orpington, 1 Lace Wyandotte, and 2 Araucanas (a smaller breed, but with blue/green eggs!).
Little Jerry Seinfeld, the Rhode Island Red (pictured below to the right of Dave), was the one to give us our first egg. A beautiful brown egg.
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| Feeding our chickens for the first time... Dave's face is awesome here |
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| Left to right: Little Jerry Seinfeld (butt pictured), Little Foot, Lucy, Turkey, Big Momma (again, mostly butt) |
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| Me + the egg! |
Rhode Island Red: like the big chicken from cartoons! Who knew that cartoons could teach you something? (ME!)
ReplyDeleteps, love the pic of the kitchen!!
My dad says Little Foot looks like a Chicken-Hawk, like the big chickens little buddy!
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