Spring in the Garden

Spring in the Garden

Saturday 21 February 2009

A second egg and a change of scene

This morning I found a second egg, which had been laid in the roosting area, so perhaps the fan was drawn across the nest box a bit too early last night. We were told to do this each evening for the first month so the birds don't get into the habit of roosting in there and making it mucky. This helps to keep the eggs clean.

As you can see from the picture, the second egg was bigger than the first, but not quite as big as the medium egg, which we bought.















The small egg got a bit lost in the egg cup. I guess that's what they call a pullet's egg.


They both tasted very nice, but the yolks seemed a bit orange, which may be due to the dyes in the feed, which I'm not entirely happy about. We shall make sure we buy organic feed next time, not least because I have been buying organic free range eggs for some time now as I think that is best for the chickens and the environment.















Later on we moved the ark and run onto the grass, which they obviously enjoy eating.

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6 comments:

  1. thegardensmallholder22 February 2009 at 10:18

    More eggs, your girls must be happy! I do like your chicken housing, they look very happy scratching around on the lawn looking for worms.

    We have one layer whose eggs are so big that sometimes they do not fit into the standard size egg cups. Ouch!

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  2. Karin22 February 2009 at 17:55

    We don't have that problem, thankfully. I've been reading about egg bound chickens and prolapses caused by over large eggs, none of which sound very nice, so hopefully your chicken is meant to lay very big eggs. What kind of hen is she?

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  3. thegardensmallholder22 February 2009 at 23:20

    She is an ex battery hen and alot older than your chickens. She has always laid very large eggs since we had her nearly a year ago now. Prolapse is always a concern, so we keep a close eye on her.

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  4. Karin23 February 2009 at 11:03

    If she's always laid large eggs, then hopefully that's normal for her and her body can cope OK. Sounds like it's not been a problem so far. Is she an ISA brown like ours? I know that breed is used in commercial egg farms.

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  5. Compostwoman29 April 2009 at 23:42

    Karin are you sure your feed has dye in it? because that yolk looks like a normal coloured yolk for a hen eating a free range, greenstuff based sort of diet!

    All ours have deep yellow yolks, due to their natural diet!

    S x

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  6. Karin30 April 2009 at 09:08

    There was a flower, I've forgotten what, present in the feed purely to colour the egg yolk as far as I understand. It seemed unnecessary, but my main problem with the feed was the presence of GM maize or soya. Also I'm gardening organically, so wanted organic feed for my chickens.

    However, we seem to need some non-organic wormer for our chickens. I thought Verm-ex was meant to be an actual wormer, but have discovered it is only a 'preventetive', so I'm not sure what it actually does, as I suspect one of our chickens has a tapeworm. The recommended wormer should arrive today or tomorrow.

    I'm on a learning curve and my ideas may change as I learn more.

    ReplyDelete

I look forward to reading your comments, it's always good to hear encouraging words or relevant hints and tips.

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