Beauty Farming Life

I read this somewhat disturbing article about 'city folk' that want chickens only to end up dropping them off at shelters in their towns. The numbers have been rapidly increasing in urban cities as those who get hens, change their minds. Chickens in the yard, image courtesy of davesgarden.com Apparently, they raise them with visions of baskets full of fresh eggs every day, only to quickly realize that they require more work than they imagined.  Feed, water, letting them free range for a bit, keeping them safe from predators, warm in Winter, dealing with their occasional health problems, cleaning out the coop, and then as they age and stop laying, they still live for years. Then they just throw in the towel and drop off their hens at nearby shelters.   It's definitely a side of a popular trend that is often unreported.  I know that in our neighborhood in town, there have been people who have just let chickens go in the street when they tired of them a...

Fresh Eggs When we were out there this past weekend, 2nd Family had some good news; their hens, that had stopped laying a couple of months ago, started back again and they are getting about 6 per day.  We're not sure why they stopped, could be the time of year, but more likely, there have been some traumatic incidents in recent months...a hawk snatched up one of them while they were free ranging, and they think it was a coyote that got into the hen house another time and they lost two more.  "Security" has since been beefed up and it seems the "girls" are more relaxed and the eggs are coming regularly again.  Apparently, a happy hen is a laying hen!  They've had laying hens for years, and she said she hadn't purchased eggs in the store in so long, it was like a new experience having to do while they weren't laying. Of course, 6 per day 7 days a week, is over 3 dozen...in a week!  They are a family of three, so the best part of their over abundan...

I wish I could say these are additions to our farm, but they are the newest additions to 2nd Family's homestead.  Born just a few hours ago.  This is their first ever batch of newborns so they are excited and we are excited for them.  Side note, what is a group of baby chicks called?  Clutch?  Brood? There are 5 eggs that they have been waiting on to hatch and these are the first two that made it into the world.  Love the little "eye stripes" on this little gal (or guy?).  Should, hopefully anyway, be three more coming soon.  Can't wait to see them all this weekend.  Yes, we're suckers for baby anythings. I can't wait until the day when we can have our own.  Until then though, we will live vicariously through theirs (and we get eggs!)

We used up the last of the farm fresh eggs that 2nd Family gave us recently.   We needed six and only had five... Fresh farm eggs vs store bought Of course we still had 'regular' store bought eggs in the fridge so we cracked one into the measuring cup.  WHAT THE HECK? Amazing difference... It's funny, I showed this picture to one of our dear friends and she said it has kind of creeped her out toward buying eggs at the store, LOL.  Chickens are on our someday list of course, so for now, we can enjoy the fresh eggs provided by 2nd Family's ladies at the other end of the driveway.

Not for us, we're not quite ready for that.  Bees yes, but chickens, not quite yet.  Recently however, 2nd Family got some new chicks.  Of course, with the rainy weekends, we weren't able to see them until now and they are not so much "chicks' anymore, ha.  Tween chicks?  Twicks?  LOL! Chicks Anyway, one of "R's" coworkers decided to get some now that they live in the country.  They thought a couple dozen would be a good start.  "R" promptly reminded them, "um, you DO know that means you'll be getting a couple dozen eggs per DAY, right?".  Apparently they hadn't thought that far ahead!  Seeing as how 2nd Family's girls are getting older, they decided to take a few off their hands.  A random assortment of six, mostly the same. One of the six however is this adorable girl.  A black "Silkie".  Oh my gosh, it's the softest, fuzziest thing.  The feathers almost seem like fur.  Black Silkie ...

We came home from a house showing last night and our amazing realtor had left us a dozen fresh eggs from her hens at their farm!  A  variety of sizes and colors from a variety of chickens! Farm Fresh Eggs She and her husband have a farm outside of Houston and of course they have chickens.  She said she wasn't sure if we'd like them.  Um, yeah, she knew us way better than she realized, ha.  Gotta love fresh eggs!  Between our realtor sharing her eggs and 2nd Family sharing theirs, we get the fresh eggs experience without having the chickens (for now!). Hope you are having a good weekend.  We are dodging rain showers today...and it looks like some heavy rain is heading this way later.  We made a run to the farm to take a few things and check the house but are back in town now. More later!

Got these pictures in my email box a couple of days ago. 2nd Family got some new chicks for their coop a few months back that I blogged about HERE .   Among them was an odd little chick that looked kind of like a black bird that somehow got mixed in.  She was smaller than all the others.   There was also one that turned out to be a rooster.  A TINY rooster.  I've never see such a small rooster.  He has all the attitude but none of the aggression, oh and did I mention he's tiny?  All of the hens are bigger than him by at least two times the size. Anyway, "birdy" as they named the odd little black chicken, sort of stayed to herself.  In their chicken yard, she made her own nest away from the other hens.  They didn't notice that she had laid some eggs in a hidden spot.   Hen and chicks  And then they went out the other morning and saw little fluffy black things running around in the yard.  Baby chick...

Farm fresh egg variety 2nd Family gave us a couple dozen more eggs from their hens.  They have more than they need.  We of course LOVE LOVE LOVE to have them as there is just no comparison to store bought.  Of course, it's a random variety of eggs from their random variety of new and older hens, ha.  In this batch though, we noticed the small, tiny eggs.  What the heck?   We had to do some research on them. Regular egg vs Pullet egg Turns out, they are called "Pullet Eggs".  See the photo above, they are tiny when compared to a regular egg.  Almost a third smaller in size.  At first we thought "well those are just too cute" and didn't think much more about it.   Pullet eggs After some more research, it turns out that pullet eggs are A THING .  Here is an article about them: PULLET EGGS Pullet eggs are the first few eggs of a hens lifetime.  This makes them rare.  The flavor is...

Not ours, we don't have chickens yet.  These belong to 2nd Family.  "J" texted me this picture yesterday with the caption WHAT THE...?? Baby chicks (click to enlarge) They had no idea these had been born until Mama hen just strolled out from underneath the house with six  seven little chicks following behind her!   They are pretty adorable, that's for sure.  She said these seem to reproduce like rabbits, ha.  This is their third clutch of chicks.  They spent yesterday getting them into their protected coop area that has a wire mesh "ceiling" to protect them from flying predators. She asked us if we knew anyone who wanted some free chicks but of course we don't think any of our city friends will take us up on that offer.  If we still had a house in town with a regular yard, we might be persuaded to step into the world of raising chickens for eggs so we could learn for the time when we are at the farm to live.  Alas, ...