a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: About My Chickens

  • Help Is On the Way

    HelpIsOnTheWayC

    I’m clearing out a bed of chard and onion to make way for spinach. The packet says 38 days to harvest. I love how seed packets are always so full of optimism. First Billy and then Lucky come into the hoop house to help me prep the ground. You can accomplish any farm task as long as you have enough chickens. They are soil experts with beaks and claws from hell. Need a vegetable or flower bed aerated? Chickens to the rescue. Need a bed of cover crop mowed down? Chickens at your service. Need a compost pile turned? Chickens know how to do that. Need a plot debugged? A flock of chickens will do it nicely, and leave the plot well fertilized to boot.

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    HelpIsOnTheWayA

  • Svenda Sandstone

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    B’dazzled blue, cedar chest, Egyptian blue, Harvard crimson, metallic sunburst – the names of colors is endless. Here’s one more: Svenda Sandstone, the color of Svenda’s eggs. She lays eggs that not only have a sandstone color, they even feel like sandstone when you rub them. One was laid February 24 and the other today, February 26.

    Each egg a hen lays is slightly different from the one before it, and different enough from the other hens, that it is often easy to tell whose egg it is. Svenda will never lay a white egg. She’ll never lay a dark egg. She only lays sandstone colored eggs.

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  • Things a Hen Like

    WhatAHenWantsA

    Hens like quiet, sheltered nests. They are modest and like to lay eggs without being exposed to prying eyes. This is 雲月 (Ungestu – Moon Cloud). I have several of these very refined, gray-black hens.

    I read about some farms which produce a million eggs a day, which means they have more than a million hens crammed in very noisy, crowded warehouses. Not one of those hens gets to lay an egg in a quiet nest. What they have are more than a million very frustrated, crazed hens. I would need 50,000 acres, a farm about nine miles by miles, or nearly twice the size of San Francisco, to house that many hens. Chickens need lots and lots of space.

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    WhatAHenWantsC

    Hens also like to peck at daffodils. Not a single hen on those farms with more than a million hens ever gets to peck at a daffodil. They live their entire lives without ever seeing a single flower bloom.

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  • Almost Grown

    MotherSonA

    Miasa has been a mother for over three months now. Her chicks are mostly on their own, but occassionaly they spend time together. Here she is with one of her sons, enjoying the sunshine yesterday. Of all the hens who have reared chicks, she has spent more time raising her chicks than any other hen.

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    MotherSonC

  • Now at Slough Food

    EggsAtSloughFoodsA

    I delivered some eggs at Slough Food in Edison today. One of the cartons has an egg laid today by Snowflake. All the eggs were laid yesterday and today. They are in the cooler at Slough Foods. If you’re in Edison this weekend, pick up some super fresh eggs. Each egg has the date it was laid, so you don’t have to guess how old they are.

    If you’re wanting to make fluffy omelettes or a soufflé, use them right away. To make boiled eggs, let them sit in the fridge for a week.

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