Keeping Busy in the Cold Barn

(I gave Ruth the week off from photos, and stole her camera. She edited them.)

As you can see from the thermometer in my coop, it is about 30° F. In spite of the cold weather, my hens have been laying more eggs than ever! On Wednesday, they laid 17 and the next day laid 19! I already have 14 today and it's only around noon. Up until this barrage, the girls have been averaging 10-12 eggs per day for the past couple of months. I think it must be a combination of the light I am leaving on from 6:30AM until 8:00PM and the maturing of the Polish Crested hens. I am getting a lot of white eggs now since white layers are the majority of the flock.

How did the thermometer get dirty? The same way as the light bulb, I guess.




Free Ranging in the barn basement


Since they can't/won't go outside due to the 8 inches of snow on the ground, I have been letting the chickens out of the coop and into the rest of the barn. The basement is my next project. It has a lot of dirt piled up in it. Why it's in there, I don't know, but it has got to go. For the time being, however, the chickens have been loving their dustbaths.


Look at the two white crested polish hens standing tail to tail. They both just finished wallowing in the dirt.

What do you think of her really bad haircut?

What are you looking at?

Go away, I'm taking a bath.

Nesting Boxes

There are over 20 nice nesting boxes on the walls of the coop, full of clean, dry, cozy straw. However, half of the hens prefer unconventional housing for their eggs. "Monkey see, monkey do" seems to be their mantra. If one of them lays an egg somewhere interesting, others follow suit.

Corner lot, nice views available.

While I was taking the photo, the black crested polish hen, (who follows me around all the time), came over to investigate and began setting on the eggs.


Well, nosey Floozey saw that and came over to see what all the excitement was about and proceeded to kick the black one out.

Now that she was alone with the eggs, she began to adjust them so she could do her mothering thing. She stayed there for about two minutes and then was off to see what I was going to do next. Floozey is the nosiest hen in the coop.

Next, I went to the the overturned feed bucket and there was Floozey, checking out the eggs. She actually stayed there for the rest of the time I was in the coop.

Floozey is a Buttercup hen. Doesn't she have the most interesting comb? It will get twice this size as she matures. She was hatched on April 4, 2008. (my birthday!)






Now here is a fancy place to lay some eggs. Notice that round one? it's a Dunlop.


Newly Named

I leave you this week with the Little Dudes. Gomer and Goober, squaring off.