Two Hens Gone

Well, it happened yesterday.

It was a beautiful day following lots of rain. The chickens were happy to get out of the coop as they had been kept in during the rainy days. We keep them in for two reasons. One is that when it rains, they want to get out of it, which usually means getting on the patio and snuggling up on my patio furniture! Ugh!
The other is that when it rains, coyotes run everywhere. Rain floods their usual hiding places, dens, and trails. They get confused and just roam. On rainy days in the desert, you can see coyotes at shopping malls, at the gas station, in your front yard, on all the roads and wandering around school playgrounds. This puts the chickens in more danger than usual, so I prefer to just keep them off the patio and out of harm's way.
So, as I said, they were glad to get out on such a sunny day. The earth worms had been flooded up from the ground and were providing a tasty treat for the chickens. I appreciated them cleaning up those nasty worms.
It was about 1:30 in the afternoon. Greg was helping my dad on his boat in the front yard, next door. I had just gone to the backyard next door to visit with my mom and their new puppy. The kids were in the family room playing wii. The dog was inside with the kids, and the chickens were roaming the yard as usual.
Mom and I heard a chicken squawk and wondered what it was. Then we heard it again and saw a chicken flapping above the 6 foot fence. We ran over and saw 3 chickens outside the fence. We figured that they were squawking because they were trying to get back in. Without looking into the yard (why didn't I just look into the yard?!?) we started herding the chickens around the front of the house to the other side where I assumed they had come from.
This took several minutes and when we got to the other gate, the chickens refused to go in. I opened the gate to see chickens running and a coyote in my yard!! I started yelling and running, and mom did, too. Greg came running. Mom saw the coyote jump my 6 foot fence and then had to chase him away as he didn't want to leave. I wish she had had a gun.
We accounted for each chicken. 9 were okay, one lay mortally wounded in the yard and another struggled to walk, falling over, laboring to breathe. They were Henny, our big ol' Buff Orpington, and Flare, a beautiful Speckled Sussex. Both were great layers. Henny laid huge eggs. She was a great character, and Flare was the chicken that Nathan named when we brought them home as chicks. We were all devastated, realizing what we had to do.
One of the important lessons in having chickens that I wanted my children to learn, was that they are here to provide food. There would be no life saving attempts, no nursing the birds back to health. They had to be put out of their misery, butchered and baked. The children knew this.
Now, as much as I wanted this lesson to be a part of our chicken raising adventure, I dreaded it, and now I wept at our loss. We dearly loved those chickens. They had names and little personalities. But we did what had to be done, albeit tearfully. My dad was there to coach us on what to do. He and mom were great support. They taught me these lessons about animals when I was young. I am thankful they were there to help us pass on the wisdom to my kids.
Greg and my dad set out with guns and binoculars to hunt the coyote who would surely be back soon. They were unable to spot him that day, but his fate is sealed. He has discovered our chickens and will come back over and over again until he has killed them all.
I find myself harboring the appropriate hatred of the competing predators.
So, Flare and Henny are gone.
Farewell girls. Thanks for the eggs.

I should note here that my previous posts have been edited to reflect our mistaken identity of our first laying hen. It wasn't Henny who laid first, it was Penny, and she is still with us. Big ol' Henny did start laying just about 10 days ago, but wasn't the hen I was blogging about. Oops.

Eggs! Eggs! and More Eggs!

Here they come!! The eggs are arriving! It was just 12 days ago that Penny laid her first egg. When that happened, we thought the rest would soon follow! Well, they are now!

Penny has been a faithful girl. She marches into the hen house every day around noon and leaves us a beautiful cream-colored egg. They are small, but each one is just a tiny bit bigger than the last. Following is a video the kids made of their taste test between a store bought "free range" egg and one of Penny's eggs. Guess which egg they liked better!



So, we were waiting for more chickens to lay. We watched them carefully for the same "laying behavior" that we saw in Penny. Well, two days ago, we noticed Cinnamon (my favorite hen - she follows me everywhere and is so curious!) looking around in places she had never looked before. She was coming out of dark corners, and from under bushes with a determination that indicated an impending egg. So we knew it was coming.

What we didn't notice, was Hazel, the quiet Ameracauna looking also. The only indication I got was a strange sighting out of my bedroom window. She was up on the window sill acting a little strange, then seemed to jump down. Later, I went out to retrieve Penny's egg. As I came across the patio, I happened to notice a chicken in the garbage can!! It was Hazel. She had jumped in there from my bedroom window sill! That silly hen! I picked her up hoping to get her into the hen house before she laid, but nope, too late. There was her egg! I took her and her egg to the coop and put them both in a laying box. I hoped that her last memory of coming out of the coop would help her learn to lay there, but alas, the next day, she was perched atop the garbage can squawking.

So, in an effort to prevent this from happening with another hen, we locked Hazel, Cinnamon, and of course Penny in the coop.

This created a scene that I wish I had gotten on video! Cinnamon, who has the most outgoing personality and vocal expression, commenced to squawking loudly! In response, the rooster came over and started honking even louder and pacing outside the coop. This went on for about 20 minutes while Cinnamon checked out each and every box and paced the coop.

I found this on the web. It helps explain why they make so much noise:

For instance, when a hen is ready to lay her egg, she gives a
nesting call, inviting her mate to join
her in finding a nesting site.
Together they find and create a nest by pulling
and flinging around
themselves twigs, feathers, hay, leaves, and loose dirt,
after they have
scraped a depression in the ground with their beaks and feet.
Upon laying
her egg, the hen issues an "egg cackle," which brings the rooster to
her
side, and together they rejoin the flock. United Poultry Concerns

Meanwhile Penny, quiet little Penny, entered her favorite box to lay her egg. Cinnamon eventually settled in the box opposite her.




















When both eggs were laid, Cinnamon started squawking again, announcing the arrival of her egg. You can hear General Cotton (the roo) in the background responding to her. He stayed right by the coop until we let them out. He is a good roo!




We eventually let all three out as we didn't expect to get another egg from Hazel that day.

So, I went out at sunset as they were tucking themselves in bed and checked the boxes one last time, and, Hello!! another egg. We don't know who laid this one! We definitely think it is a "first egg", but whose? My money is on the speckeled sussex, Flare. We will have to watch and see who laid the mystery egg!!!

Now, this morning!! There is another egg! We think this is Hazel's second egg because it is the same color. I guess we will soon have to give up the idea that we will always know who laid the eggs we find. For now it is fun to try to figure it out!

When a hen lays her first egg, our experience has been that it will have a grainy texture, speckles, and be thinner than subsequent eggs. Our exception to that is the RI Red, Cinnamon, who laid a fairly big normal looking egg. It was slightly grainy, though.

I am pleasantly surprised that the eggs seem to have very healthy shells and good colored yolks (per the ONE that we have cracked open). We let the hens free range in our yard and they eat a lot of grass, bugs, seeds, etc. They really don't eat much of the feed we provide. I would guess that it is maybe 1/4 of their diet. I don't feed them any oyster shells, or other supplements. They get kitchen scraps only if they are organic, or from the middle of the fruit (as with cantalope seeds). But they don't get a lot other than what they are finding in the yard.


Where will we put all the eggs? I guess we will need an egg refrigerator!