Redbud Roost has been rockin' so far this winter. I have to say I am a bit surprised at how well the chicks have been behaving. This is the coldest winter we have had since we have lived in Tennessee and last year the big girls had a few issues with the cold. This year both flocks have done really well with both laying and with each other.
When we moved the big girls over to the second hen house I forgot about the lighting because, well, their hen house is inside the barn and it has lights, just not that stay on for the appropriate amount of time each day. So the girls went through a molt and most stopped laying. We learned so much from the molt. We learned that Daniel's beloved Zelda is probably the worst layer we have. Zelda did a slow molt, we knew she was vain but oh gosh she took it to new levels.
Once the molt was over I installed a lamp on a timer and after a bit they got back on schedule with laying. Now we have 43 layers and we are getting 30+ eggs a day. Thank goodness we have a pretty good customer base to handle some of those eggs. ;) When we get backed up we just scramble and boil eggs to feed back to the girls. Extra protein is always a good thing and they love them. The shells get baked and fed back as well to add extra calcium to their diets.
Sarah can not wait until Spring when we will order our new flock. I can't blame her, the babies are always so much fun.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A Brand New Day!
I have not blogged in a long time. I am now ready to move forward and want to revive this blog. It started out as a way to journal our 4H project of raising chickens but we are opening it up to so much more. Our family is building a small hobby farm, one limestone at a time and we live with a number of health issues that sometimes get in the way. I hope you find your way back here on a regular basis as we grow and add new features to the blog and to Redbud. Welcome!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
