Most Eggslent!!

At least 3 and maybe all 4 of the Silkies have started laying eggs.

16 eggs so far - and 3 of them were just yesterday!

Tiny little balls of fluff  to gangly adolescents to egg laying contributors to the good life!

Thanks Girls!


Silkie eggs seem to be 1/2 to 3/4 size of a regular hen's eggs. Perfect for Mum -just as planned!

Toronto council

rejected a motion to get a staff report studying the feasibility of back yard hens. 

From an animal control perspective I'm not sure it is a great thing to have hens (facilities/enforcement) but I'm not sure that the jerks don't have them (or rabbits or doves or whatever) anyhow

the folks that are waiting for it to be legal would probably have hens or the same reasons we do 

and the more people eating humane happy eggs the better - at least to my view!

everything is still growing ...

veggies, puppy, chicks .. I would have thought things would have slowed down but no everything is still chugging ahead ..tomato plants will not be spectacular this year - they are already fruiting instead of still growing but the peas have been awesome, beans look like they'll be fine, and squash are threatening to take over the planet! Potatoes, onions  and garlic are looking ok too.
Pretty fine start to my two months of farm life. Dogs and rabbits are THRILLED and the three laying hens are just a pleasure to live with.

Egg count - at least 30 - I think I'm losing count!!

3 hens a layin'

We have some fine ladies this year. 7 days .. 19 eggs. Not bad considering we were told they weren't laying!They are super super friendly hens now too. Quite the characters. They are easy to tell apart but I haven't named them yet. I'm sure something will come to me but ideas are always welcomed!

Won't you come out and play today?

Poor little chicks are so hot today - they moved to slightly larger accommodations and lost the completely solid sided walls on their brooder as they are just getting too hot. Can't wait to get them outside on grass I think they will be very happy. I hope so.

The new ladies are doing their job already - three eggs in 24 hours! They can slow down a bit if it suits them! They seem terrified to come out of their coop. Although one was letting me pet her and being quite calm so hopefully the great outdoors won't be so scary soon. (Yes, that's one of the ladies peering out at the great wide world.

Hay was cut yesterday. The annual YAY HAY shot!

Chicken Summer ...

If 2009 was the summer of Rabbit and last year was the year of the Great Garden this summer will be chicken summer!

We have 21 white rock crosses (if I buy grocery store chicken and hate doing so how can we not try raising ethical food- at least once?). We got 2 week old started pullets for our first adventure and so far it's going OK. The chicks are taming down nicely and growing well too. Alone they would be an adventure.

 

We also have three laying hens. Like the first summer we got chickens we have little to no story on them. They were basically dumped at a local feed store. I happened to ask if they knew anybody with laying hens that needed homing when they had boxes of hens about to turn to stew. We got three hens and despite being quite sure they wouldn't lay for awhile (they are nearly naked at the moment) they immediately rewarded us with an egg. If I get an egg a day from them that will be way up from last years production and I'll be happy. These poor ladies have been debeaked so I hope they can get bugs etc as well as the girls the last two summers.

happy girls

Admiring the hillbilly ramp on the hill billy coop :) The FREE ramp and coop too. I'm quite impressed with our scavenging skills. Actually getting hardware cloth to line a couple of holes cost $5 so not quite free. We had to invest in a bag of layer mash and the chicken wire for the run (total cost $50) so have spent $55 to date. In 10 days we have gotten 14 + eggs from displaced stressed out hens so we aren't doing too badly at all! Better than the $300 dollar egg somebody was celebrating on one of the boards :)