September 19, 2010
Yesterday was fairly uneventful, no eggs. The day before, Goldie, in the midst of being picked on, flew up to my shoulder and perched there as if to say, “Help! Protect Me!!!” When I saw that she had a red blood mark on her face from being pecked, I had felt so sorry for her and I had picked her up and babied her, holding her in the crook of my arm against my chest and stroking her and talking to her with the other hand. She murmured softly as if she was telling me all of her woes. It has been strange since they’ve been picking on her, she chatters a lot as if she is fussing at them and this seems to irritate Hawkeye who chases her and tries to peck her each time she makes the sounds.
I did put a large plastic wheel barrow type apparatus in the coop upside down to give Goldie a place to run under and hide that the large birds could not fit under. All of the birds were afraid of it, except I noticed it didn’t take long for the two bantams to make use of it as a hide out. I began to wonder if they were going to lay eggs under it and each time I lifted it up to check, all of the birds scattered.
This morning when I went out to give them some leftover bread and some dried oatmeal and some grass, I couldn’t find Raven. She was not in the bottom or top small nesting boxes, so I looked to the large upper box on the left side and there she was. She had nestled herself a large indent in the shavings and was sitting there. I tried to give her a morsel of bread and she opened her beak threateningly and squawked at me. “Alright, alright” I said. Funny, she was the bird closest to me, but since laying, is not as docile. Goldie, when she began laying, became MORE docile. Later, Raven had jumped down so I went to check things out. No egg. I swear, this is my knee rehab, walking in and out a million times a day to check on them. Just a little while ago, I went out again. Raven was out of the nest and had left me a gift, egg number 4 to add to the bunch. Makes a total of 21 so far between Goldie and Raven. Goldie started laying every other day for about six days, then stopped for an entire week, then started laying daily before becoming broody. She is no longer broody Thank God. Didn’t last that long. Perhaps the constant changes in the nesting boxes helped things. Raven, on the other hand, has laid an egg every OTHER day since starting. I wonder if she will ramp up and lay daily or if this will be her schedule and whether she too will go broody once she has laid an approximate number of eggs? In the wild, they lay a clutch of about 12 eggs, then stop, go broody and sit on the eggs until they hatch. Then they raise their chicks for about six weeks or until they can fend for themselves fairly well. It would seem like a nice way to give them an egg-laying break so their bodies can recover without being completely depleted. Factory hens are bred to lay daily, are kept in cages all their lives, where they cannot even spread their wings, and stand in their own excrement. The lights are on all the time to force them to lay more since their laying extends when there are more daylight hours. This was nature’s design for hens, longer daylight for having chicks in the Spring initially, but not daylight 24/7 all year long! When the hens stop laying eggs, they are killed. No golden twilight Grandma years for them.
Since I don’t know for sure what breeds Raven and Goldie are, it’s difficult to read up on what their characteristics might be. I think Goldie is a Buff Japanese or a Nankin and Raven might be some type of Black Rosecomb since she has the large wrinkly white ears, or they could both be mutts...hard to say. I am very fond of my mutts though!!!! Ellie has been going into the boxes and sitting sometimes so I think she will be next. It will be interesting to have a larger egg, although I have read that Lakenvelders, being one of the smaller standard breeds (about 4lbs for hens), lay smaller eggs. I wonder if Hawkeye and Chanel will lay huge eggs then, because they are pretty large?
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