Month: January 2016

We woke up this morning to a fairy dusting of snow. It was still falling but the snowflakes were so fine, you needed fairy glasses to see it falling. The fine snow didn’t deter Nina from taking her little chicks out to forage. There is almost nothing that will deter a mother hen.

This is Anna’s first snow. Hmm, she’s not sure what to make of it. One step forward, then another, she goes. If she ever raises chicks in the snow, I wonder what she’ll tell them about it. “My first snow was breast deep and …” She looks like a hen with an imaginative mind.

What happens when raw eggs freeze? We have had many days of freezing nights. In the shade, the frost hasn’t melted for days, getting thicker with each passing day. On Saturday, I found an old nest where some of the hens have been laying eggs. The last time I checked that nest was five days ago and I stopped checking every day as no hens were laying eggs there.

The hens must have been watching and noticed I wasn’t checking that nest anymore because they started laying eggs there once I stopped checking. The eggs were freezing cold and some were a number of days old.

Hmm? Are these ice cold, frozen eggs any good? I let them thaw a day and cracked them open today. They were perfect. Now I know. If an egg stays on a nest a few days in freezing weather, it will be fine.