Today was a day of catching up on all the things that have been put on hold during the holidays. First and foremost on my list was to clean the chicken coop. It hasn’t been very long since I cleaned it and it hasn’t seemed to bother the girls any…..they have been laying plenty of eggs.
It is my understanding that they normally slow down in the winter time. However, I have a friend/neighbor that remembers a wives tale from her mother. Several other neighbors have told me the same thing…so there must be something to the tale. It is said that if you put hot pepper in corn bread and feed it to the hens it will make them lay more eggs.
Now….I don’t know if there is any truth to this or not….but the girls sure seem to be steady. My neighbor cooks up a batch for them every so often. I have been collecting 3 to 4 eggs a day. That means that I am gathering around 21 (or more) eggs a week. Not bad….especially since I only have 6 hens.
Free range eggs are supposed to be healthier. There is actually less cholesterol…. more vitamin D, less saturated fat, up to 2 times more omega 3…. just to name a few things.
Ironically, I am not an egg eater. I know…I should be ashamed. But I do like to eat things that have egg in them. Like fried rice and stuff like that…I just don’t care for egg by itself. I am going to work on that though. So, I started the other day. I cooked one of our girls eggs next to a store bought egg. I just wanted to see the difference.
Store bought on the left and free range on the right. The yolks are deeper in color…almost orange looking.
Chickens love to eat bugs and worms and all kinds of creepy crawling critters. All of that natural eating from things found in the ground are the very reason why they are better for you. Of course in the winter the bugs are a little more scarce than they are the rest of the year. Today, while cleaning their house I moved a bale of hay that I had sitting by the porch. They went NUTS….they found worms and little black bugs and all kinds of things that were either under the hay and in the hay. I had given them some chicken scratch this morning…but they ignored it and went straight to the spot where the hay had been.
I have these little critters on hand for those cold days….when I think they would like a treat. They are mill worms….dried.
Isn’t that just crazy? I am finding that there are a lot of things that I do that are crazy since I moved out to the land. I often have baggies of these mill worms in my car. And I find that I kinda like the smell of sweet feed that I take over to the cows. I have containers of cut apples for the donkeys and ponies in the fridge most of the time…and I am constantly setting aside food scraps for the goats. I try to make sure I label what they are for….afraid Billy might think it is something for him to munch on. It wouldn’t take but one good bite and he would know that it wasn’t…but I would hate for that to happen.
I got tickled yesterday when Billy put on some coveralls that he wears when it is really cold out. He had them on about a week ago and they had been in the garage until yesterday. He reached in his pocket and pulled out an egg….we both busted out laughing.
We are really enjoying farm life.
The girls are getting bigger combs….it has been neat watching them grow.
This is usually what you see when you pass by the fence. All tails….that means that they are happy, happy, happy!
I've Gone Country 