Archive for Backyard chickens

How to lay an egg

Posted in Urban Farming with tags , on July 12, 2009 by xxxicana

Either Henny or Penny laid an egg this morning . .  and I was able to catch the process on video.  Nesting thru crowing took about 12 minutes.   This video is of the last few minutes; you can hear the egg drop.  Oops . . . I didn’t put enough nesting material in the box.

The girls have gotten quite big and should probably get even bigger now that I’ve switched them to layer feed.

Here are a couple of other photos from the garden.

P1010013

Tom was going to throw out these old work boots, but felt bad to let them go.  Instead I put them in the garden and planted petunias.  The leather will degrade over time, but meanwhile we’ll ejoy the silly juxtoposition.

P1010015

I planted a row of sunflowers for the winter birds.

P1010011Potatoes growing in a recycled container.  I’m hoping to get a good crop of little reds.

Mister Man and I attended Zoofest last night.  Here’s a photo with our pal Pablo

zoofestI got a new rodeo style top for the occasion!

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Hey Baby, it’s the 4th of July

Posted in Urban Farming with tags , , on July 5, 2009 by xxxicana

One of our girls decided to celebrate the 4th of July by laying her first egg!  Our party had just started when someone noticed there was something in the coop . . . a little brown egg.   The girls are on their way to helping us eat local, fresh food.  Mister Man and I were as proud as new grandparents!  Here are some photos from yesterday:

1st eggThe Proud Grandpa

(notice the resemblance?)

car wth 1st eggThe proud Grandma

chickies in coopThe mamas

Early arrivals to the party were witness to the first egg . . . thanks guys for sharing this great moment!

dave, joan, timDave, Joan, and Tim

duncan, tomDuncan and Tom

4th of julyFolks enjoying food, drink, and conversation

Our party turned out to very fun, casual, and relaxing.  Here are Joan and Kim enjoying the evening:

joan, kim

Entertainment was provided by Tom Martin (playing his new National), Stan Martinez (drums), Pablo Rangel (harmonica), Gunter Voelker (Guitar), and Tom Voelker (harmonica)

july 4th jam 2

(left to right: Pablo, Tom, Stan, Gunter)

Phew, another great party . . . the day after has turned out to be exciting.  While Mister Man and I were enjoying our coffee outside, another egg was laid.  I took video of the process . . . .

Nesting

(nesting material is shredded bills, thus foiling (or should that be fowling) identity thieves!)

egg #2Hen fruit #2

Proud mamas

I always thought that chickens squawked when the egg was popping out . . . but we have now learned that once the egg is laid the hen jumps out of the coop and starts yelling out “hey! look what I did!”  Since we can’t tell the chickens apart we don’t know if only one is laying or both . . . but from the video you can see that both are happy about the new egg.

Pullet eggs are the first eggs laid and are small.

egg #2a

Comparison with store bought large eggs

eggs in carton 2

The only down side to this is that I just bought a 50# bag of feed for growing chickens.  Now I’ll have to go back out to the Tractor Store to get layer  feed.   Nevertheless, Mister Man and I are so happy with our chickies – we enjoy their company and antics.  Hope y’all enjoy them virtually as well!

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