who has chickens

our girls are starting to lay larger eggs   and someone is out doing herself   as she has given us 2 double yolkers in a row   


1st one we boiled



2nd one we fried it



both eggs came from the same hen as they were the same shape and color.....so far we have only been able to catch 1 hen right after she laid her egg....the rest we don't know what their eggs look like....but we are getting 2 eggs a day....one in the morning and one at about noon   

happy raising hens
rose

FamilyGardening wrote:Ace is taking her job seriously watching over the girls....she follows them all day long as they get a few hours of chaperone free range in our back yard  





she also lays next to their play pin while they go in for naps and something to drink    


hubby is almost done building the girls their coop and then we get to paint it and move them in .......

hugs
rose

That is great. How did you introduce the dog to the chickens? How old is your dog? Is this your dogs' first chicken experience?

Ace is 3 years old and Krypto is 9 years old and this is their first experience with chickens.....

we brought home the girls when they were about 1 day old.....we kept them in a clear Rubbermaid so that we could introduce the dogs to them and also so the girls would get use to seeing us all the time as well.....

every day we would let the dogs look at and sniff the girls....then as the girls got a bit older and we were starting to take them out side for free range we put them in a small dog fence and allowed the dogs to sniff them.....

Ace fell in love with them and would lay down at the fencing the entire time the hens were out....

Krypto wanted to sniff them and that was that...from then on he really didn't pay to much attention to them....

when we felt comfortable by watching the dogs excellent behavior around the girls we then allowed them to stick their heads in thru the little gate and take sniffs and such....then as the girls got a bit bigger we would let the hens out in the back yard for free range supervised....again the dogs were great and Ace became their baby sitter and wanted to be with them at all times......

from then on, once the girls went out to their chicken coop and run, the dogs have continued to be wonderful with them....to the point of Ace learning how to open their coup gate and let them out    and once we fixed that....she pushed up under the chicken fencing and let the girls climb under   that's the day we found them on the dogs side of the kennel all laying together in the shade!

happy raising hens
rose

FamilyGardening wrote:Ace is 3 years old and Krypto is 9 years old and this is their first experience with chickens.....

happy raising hens
rose

Thank you for the tips. I think our GSD would the happiest dog in the world with something to help look after. They seem to have a inborn desire to protect and/or boss things around. But, you never know. and it was a concern for us.
She lightly barks the perimeter of the yard (at nothing) when I'm taking care of the SFG. She knows it's a food source for us and she gets the cucumber "doggie popsicles" as a treat. She pushes the cat away from the boxes, too. We figured that since both dogs get one hard boiled egg in the morning, we could somehow associate an egg with the chickens from the beginning. The tip for putting them in a bin as chicks and letting them get used to each other that way is a great idea. The GSD, Heidi, is 4 & 1/2 and the beagle/border collie mix is almost 7. We have a lot to learn about this idea.

our girls have kicked in! got 8 eggs from 9 hens today  They all love the same box, and will sit on top of each other to lay...silly girls! There was a 4 hen pile up, and the one finally laid on hen #3's back!! I heard bonk bonk bonk bonk; and the egg didn't break!!

SG, Since the girls love the same box, can you remove one divider and make it a double? That pile up must have been funny to watch.

sanderson wrote:SG,  Since the girls love the same box, can you remove one divider and make it a double?  That pile up must have been funny to watch.

I think if we took out the divider, the box would cave in, it's part of the support for the rest of the boxes. Sort of hard to explain...there are 4 identical sized boxes  LOL!!

When we got our girls, I put a security video camera in the coop so we could watch them.  Watching them get settled in for the night was hilarious.  There's plenty of room to roost, but they all wanted the same space, and would push and squeeze each other out of the way.  Every few nights the 'best' spot would change to a different location.  They're certainly entertaining!

boffer wrote:When we got our girls, I put a security video camera in the coop so we could watch them.  Watching them get settled in for the night was hilarious.  There's plenty of room to roost, but they all wanted the same space, and would push and squeeze each other out of the way.  Every few nights the 'best' spot would change to a different location.  They're certainly entertaining!

isn't it funny boffer?? So many roosts and boxes, and they all want the same one. Pigs do the same thing....they'll scream and have a fit and we think they're being killed alive, only to see they want the "good spot"...lol!!

since its hot outside all the girls want the window spot LOL they will squeeze in and pull each other down except for WhyNot her spot is roosting on the edge of the nesting box I think she is pretty smart as she doesn't have to fight the other girls for this spot & its directly across from the window, so she gets a nice breeze!

here is keeping happy hens
rose

My neighbor has some chickens, 1 rooster and two mini goats. Funny to watch our dog Carly sit and watch them between the fence slots. I guess we are lucky as the rooster isn't a big guy and has a wimpy call. I keep saying our dogs make more noise than he does. The local county code says no farm animals so I am waiting to see how the make out before we try some chickens, no roosters for me though.

Does this egg on top in the middle look pinkish/purple?



here is another picture of it against a crookneck squash



another shot with some other eggs we are getting....this is the first egg for this color



happy hen raising
rose

An Easter egg! Do you know who laid it?

sanderson wrote:An Easter egg!  Do you know who laid it?

1.  it might be our Blue Ameraucana  but I thought they only laid green or blue eggs but she was in the nest today...but  when she came down there was no egg in the nest.....I waited and she was in there a long time




2.  Golden Laced Wyandotte haven't caught her yet laying and haven't heard her sing the egg song either




3.  Barred Rock we have caught her and her eggs are brown





4.  Black Australorp have not caught her laying yet....but have heard her singing the egg song, but went out and there was no egg.....she was also in the nest today...








5.  Rhode Island Red we have caught her laying and she has a really pretty dark reddish color brown egg




6.  Buff Orpington have not caught her yet laying but she too has sung the egg song with out laying an egg.......















from what I got from research today.....a Black Australorp can lay a pinkish egg and so can a Barred Rock, but I know our Barred Rock is laying brown eggs...so its not her....its confusing when it comes to our Ameraucana, as sometimes they are not a true Ameraucana but more of an easter egger, yet our Ameraucana as the traits of a Ameraucana







So I guess its between our Black Australorp and our Ameraucana/Easter Egger any ideas?



happy raising back yard hens

rose
edit: not sure why there is such a large gap/space at the bottom of the page....tried to fix it, but when I go to edit the page looks fine....weird

Well, it's certainly a pretty color!  Congratulations.

Todays & yesterdays eggs



The last three newest eggs



All of our six girls eggs in order laid



*Happy Dance* for a basket of rainbow eggs on our kitchen table
Rose

Those are beautiful, congratulations!

How exciting!  That's wonderful!

They are too pretty to eat!

PS: How do you clean them?

  aww shucks thanks guys!

well the mystery continues, as hubby was outside raising the top nesting box of the girls as they seem to be to big for the bottom, Penny started singing the egg song and came up the stairs to use the nesting box....so hubby put her in the bottom one that he had been working and let her be.....when he heard her coming down the stairs he went to check on her egg excited to get another one that is pink.....but....it was NOT pink...... and he knows it was Penny because he had been working on the nesting boxes and it was still hot.....so here is a pic



The top Egg is the size of what the girls have been laying, they all started out small.. the bottom egg is....first the pink egg we got the day before yesterday, then the green/blue egg yesterday and now today the darker little brown egg...

so that leaves us very confused as we now have 7 different colored eggs with only 6 hens......

anyone seen this before?

happy hen raising
rose

sanderson wrote:They are too pretty to eat!

PS:  How do you clean them?

they are clean when we go get them.....if they become dirty with (poop) on them then that is a sign they have worms and need to be wormed....if you wash the eggs they have to go into the refrigerator as washing them takes off the protected layer on the eggs that allows them to be stored with out being refrigerated .......most countries don't refrigerate their eggs, their eggs are put on the store shelves like you would put a can or a box of food on.....if you don't wash the eggs they will last a couple of months on your shelf....then when you are ready to cook them you give them a little washing under the faucet....we also have a little brush and use that while we wash....you don't want to soak them....you just want to give them a wash under running water....
 
Baby chicks need to breath thru the egg shell and this natural coating protects any pathogens to penetrate thru the shell to keep the baby chicks from getting sick while still in the eggs....I believe one of them is pathogen is salmonella

hope this helps
rose

Thanks, Rose.

Mystery solve who is laying the pink egg....its Big Bird! caught her today!

happy with laying hens who give us a rainbow of eggs
rose

The girls enjoying their jobs as compost makers  on the dogs side of the kennel!










update on the chicken coop.....hubby put up some hoops on top of their 4x4 pen areas to help keep the girls dry....






he also put up some shelter on the back side of the pen to give them more cover for the winter.....



here is a look at how we divided the dog kennel for them and the chickens to share....you can just see a bit of the corner of the dogs house there on the right where Penny is looking for bugs....the girls love it when we let them into the dogs side of the area  if you would turn to your right past the dogs house...that's the area from the other pictures of the girls working in a small compost spot....



in the above picture you can see that he also made a large sliding gate so he is able to push the wheel barrel into the chickens coop....

over the weekend hubby has been working on putting the outside siding up with trim....next will come the inside insolation & painting the outside of the chicken

this is what their eggs have been looking like....we are getting 5 to 6 eggs a day from our six hens.....


house..... I will update you all then with some pictures.....

happy chicken keeping
rose

Rose, Thank you for sharing your adorable chickens.