October 9, 2010: Brian has chicken fever

October 9, 2010

Sat., 3:55pm

I think Brian just may have chicken fever.  Thursday, he hopped out of bed and said, “I’m going to check for eggs.”  I said, “okay”.  In he came announcing he had found two eggs and asking if I wanted sausage, eggs and toast for breakfast.  He has been sneaking out there almost every day bringing them little treats and wants to bring some eggs in for the people at work. 

Thursday, they ended up laying a total of three eggs, Ellie laid late in the day about 3:30pm, whereas Goldie and Raven laid before 11am.  Friday, both Goldie and Raven laid again, Goldie before noon and Raven after 1:30pm.

Today Ellie laid bright and early, there was an egg in the box before 10am, already cold.  Goldie laid at 12:30pm, egg still warm.  Not sure Raven will lay today or not, if so, it will be late in the afternoon.  I have a feeling they do not lay after a certain time in the day.

I cleaned out the coop finally.  I’m sure they will be happy for it not to be so smelly.  Changed the water, gave them some flax and sunflower seeds and grass from weeding the garden.  They were digging mightily through the thick bed of dried weeds in the run, so I decided to rake out half the run and expose it back to dirt and then sprinkled some scratch grain as a treat.  They were delighted and immediately went to dust bathing and digging vigorously in the dirt.  I think I’ll keep at least half always showing in dirt now.

I dumped all the dried weeds and the “coop poop” into the compost pile in the back.  I cut back the okra since it was about 8 feet tall and want to see if it will side sprout.  Some did produce side sprouts even before I cut it back, so this is an experiment to see if “topping” it will also produce side sprouts and more okra.  I pulled out all of the hot pepper and jalapeno plants and laid them out to finish drying up and pulled out all of the support trellises.  Enough to wear me out for the day.

The chickens have laid a total of 13 eggs so far this week (since Monday) and I am wondering how many the total will be by the time we reach Sunday.  Ellie is on her fifth egg now and they seem to just keep getting bigger and bigger, but of course, everything looks big next to the bantam eggs.  We have given some to Bennie, the neighbor and twice now to Brian’s Dad.  I think the next batch will go to Mr. Haithcock.  I suppose the plus of sharing eggs, besides it being a nice thing to do, is that those who receive eggs might not be so upset if our chickens ever get loose and wander into their yard.  I really would like them to free range in the back yard eventually, pulling weeds and grass for them every day gets tiring – but they love the greens above all else.

Today I gave them some old green beans off the vine as well, sat in the run with them and peeled them and held the individual beans while they pecked away at them.  They found them to be a very tasty new treat but then got bored of them.  One of their latest favorite treats are the berries off of my curly leaf privet bushes.  Ah, another day of chickendom....was fun seeing their bliss at taking a dust bath again.