Green Eggs... No Ham

Dinner laid her first egg today. Just two days after lunch started. Dinner laid a pretty green egg. Here is a picture of Dinners egg, her egg with Lunch's egg, and an egg from a local farm. After a few weeks the eggs should start increasing in size. It takes a while for the plumbing to figure things out.

Eggciting News

Finally our first egg! Way to go Lunch! Both Lunch and Dinner have been showing signs of getting ready to lay for about a week now. Very red comb, squatting, being more vocal than usual, and checking out the nesting boxes. Lunch has really been spending lots of time in the boxes, moving shavings around and scratching. We put golf balls in the boxes to give them an idea what they are used for. Peter let them out yesterday morning and a pinkish brown egg was waiting for him! It was still warm! Can't get fresher than that. He fried it up last night. Yummy. Dinner should be next. Breakfast is such a large and slow growing breed. She may be a few more weeks.

Officially Fall

The poor girls must be in shock with the cool weather. The coop was 45 degrees this morning. Little do they know, this is just beginning. We have a 100 watt light bulb inside the coop. We'll start using it when it approaches 30. They don't need it, but obviously will be more comfortable and will keep their indoor water from freezing. An electric dog bowl will do the trick outside. Rumor has it they will love scratching out in the snow. Their breeds are winter hardy so they should do well. 'Tis the season for grasses going to seed. They love nibbling on the seeds of the grasses, pumpkins and squash. Zucchini flesh too.

Such pretty girls!

14 weeks and counting! We are getting so close to egg time! The girls are big and loving running around the yard. Watermelon is still the favorite, but summer squash is a big hit too.

First day of pre-school.

Cuvilly Earth and Arts Center here we come!

Labor Day 2009 (42 photos), by Kristen Marchant

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

Little Surfer Dude

It's not the heat, it's the humidity......

The poor girls don't like the heat very much. Lots of time is spent finding shade and hunkering down in the dirt. We are trying to give them the run of the yard so they can find the coolest place possible through out the day. We're adding electrolytes to their water and giving them fresh fruit and veggies. They are getting big and have moved up to "grower" food from their chick starter. They are very pretty girls!

Summer Winds

Well, it's finally felt like summer the last few days. The girls don't love the heat but we are trying to keep them comfy with the screen door at night. The yard only gets a couple hours of sun each day, keeping the area rather cool in comparison to the front yard. We've been giving them the run of the yard a couple hours each day. They love it. Every time I approach the coop they run for the door. Their food consumption has gone down considerably since they have been "free ranging". Bugs, worms, and grasses are the food of choice. They will start moving off of their chick starter and on to chick grower next week once they are a full 8 weeks old. They stay on grower until 20 weeks or the first egg, whichever comes first.

Free Bird

What started as an escape turned into a free ranging experience. They are pretty well behaved in the yard. I am concerned about them flying over the fence or squeezing through the pickets but so far so good. As they get larger they'll be too big to breach the fence and too heavy and awkward to make it over the top.

1/3 of the way there. Almost.

The girls are 6 weeks old and doing well. We are a third of the way through to laying age. Lunch has all her feathers. Dinner is nearly there and Breakfast is catching up rapidly. If they were meat birds they would be nearly 7lbs now and ready for your dinner table. I can't imagine them growing any faster than they are.

Lunch and Dinner are very friendly. They fight over who is going to sit on my head and who is going to get my shoulder. Breakfast is at the bottom of the pecking order but she is trying. The larger two are still working it out. (No, that's not an Armenian man in the picture, it's me. I'm taking the picture myself, but I couldn't take a good photo if my life depended on it).

My father built a secure screen for their door and two roosts. One for the run and the other for inside the coop. They sleep on the indoor roost at night. They probably don't need heat from the light at night anymore. We'll put a little nightlight in there for the next week or two, then they can go without until the days start getting shorter.

Our baby robins have hatched. There are at least two babies. I thought I saw a third, but I'm not sure.

We got eaten alive at the beach last night. Otherwise it was quite nice.

What hump?

I was out locking the girls up for the evening last night. It was pretty dark at 8:30. I was leaning down to fill their feeder. The next thing I know all three decided to fly up on my back and sit down. They are learning to "put themselves to bed" at night but still need me to coax them up the ramp. With them all on my back I just needed to lean towards the door and they hopped in.

Happy 233!!

It finally stopped raining. We had a nice sunny July 4th weekend. The girls were out in their run, scratching, fighting over worms and being extra cute. They had their first encounter with the lawn mower and fireworks which proved to be traumatic for them as well as Spencer. Everyone survived and we awoke to another sunny day. How long can it last.........

Bird Flu!

Not really. Just a virus. Computer virus that is :-). One of our banks called today. Somehow they noticed a virus on my computer when I made a transaction yesterday. It's a bad one. Something that can't be removed by regular anti-virus software. ING has a client for life. If they had not notified us we could have ended up with a real problem on our hands.

Back to the girls! They love being in the coop. If it would ever stop raining they would really get to enjoy the run. Even in the rain they are out there walking around and pecking everything in sight. We give them treats to keep them happy and busy. The favorites so far are yogurt and watermelon.

The nights have been cool so we have a light on inside the coop. They like to huddle together in one of the nesting boxes. It's pretty cute.

Lunch is almost totally feathered out now. Dinner isn't far behind, just some stomach feathers to go. Breakfast is finally starting to catch up. Overnight her chest filled out. She is in that dinosaur phase the others were in a couple weeks ago.

Tomorrow we say a final good bye to our friend Don. Skipper lost his battle with cancer last week. We'll think of him on those summer days that are perfect for sailing, when enjoying Italian food and sipping his favorite, "glass of the house Cabernet". 1230 GO.

Hallelujah! The coop is here.

The girls have been in the guest room for 3 weeks now. That was enough for us. Them too. They were really starting to get bored. Letting them run around on the carpet a few times a day just wasn't cutting it. The coop arrived via tractor trailer Wednesday night. Steve and Peter were able to assemble it in just a few hours. At 350lbs, it was harder than it looked.

They will be locked in the "house" portion at night and allowed to choose either inside or out during the day. A night light will keep the indoor temp in the 70's until they get all of their feathers.

Norman and Spencer are beside themselves. Norman is much less concerned than Spencer. Lots of barking, panting, and digging. We are hoping they get better over time. A few visits on leashes and training collars should help too.

Just need to work out some summer screens for the side door, running electricity up from the pond and naming the coop!

Food for thought....sort of

Nearly a month old and the girls are doing well. Lots of rapid physical growth as well as bonding going on. They are still skittish, but happy to be affectionate on their own terms. They like to hop up on your lap and sit for a while. They especially like to peck at my ring or freckles on my arm.

As much as we've enjoyed getting little fuzzy chicks to care for and watch grow, we will never go the hatchery/feed store route again. Only local farms and rescues for us. I've spent some time on line researching how to properly care for the chickens we have. That has led me to learn more than I ever wanted to know about production hatcheries, egg farms, battery hens, and meat birds. Here is a quick and VERY mild excerpt from one site. www.brittonclouse.com/chickenrunrescue#hatcheries . I've been reading "The Omivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan (http://www.michaelpollan.com/ ). I highly recommend this book. I think if everyone was aware of where their food actually comes from, we might make different choices. One more link and I will get off my soap box. I'm not sure I will see the movie, but this is an interesting op-ed. www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/opinion/21kristof.html .

Talk'n 'bout an Evolution

Lunch, our suspected roo is looking like quite the little dinosaur. You can't see enough detail in the pictures to appreciate the drastic change in the birds from day to day. They are getting bigger by the minute. Breakfast is adding feathers much slower than the others but she is catching up in overall size. Excuse the red picture. The heat lamp has a red bulb.

The girls are getting more comfortable with us. They still don't like being held but they will eat out of your hand, especially if offering them some fresh grass from the lawn. They'll hop out of the brooder and walk around the room but don't like to be too far from home. Dinner, the dark colored Easter Egger (EE) is the most friendly. She hops over to see you when you open the brooder and seems to be the most curious of the trio.

We would have loved to build the coop ourselves. There are so many cute and fun ideas out there. We aren't that handy so we've ordered ours from a small builder who uses sustainable lumber and Eco-friendly paint. It should ship this week from Michigan and take 3 or 4 days to get here. They will need the heat lamp until the night time temps stay in the high 60's consistently. A picture of the coop style is below. Ours will be white.