a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: About My Chickens

  • What Laying Hens Deserve

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    This is how one hen lays her egg. Afterwards, she spends a few minutes doing a little nesting, and then she leaves the nest. Each hen is different. Some leave the nest soon after laying their eggs. Others will settle down afterwards and sit for awhile.

    What they all need are quiet, soft, clean nests with plenty of straw. What no hen deserves is to be locked in a wire cage, unable to be outdoors and enjoy the sun and rain, or unable to lay her egg in a soft nest.

    What no hen deserves is to be housed with tens of thousands of other hens in crowded laying houses, where there is no peace and quiet, no quiet walks in the woods, no hunting for food through tall grass, and no sunshine.

  • First Post Child Rearing Egg

    Hens lay special eggs at times. There is the very first egg they lay, which is a tiny egg. There is the first egg they lay after their winter lull. These eggs also tend to be smaller. And then there is the first egg they lay after raising chicks. And today this mother laid her first egg after raising chicks for three weeks. That is on the early side. Most hens take more than a month before they go back to laying eggs.

    I get the sense that this mother may not be raising her chicks much longer. They are getting very independent and at times during the day they stray tens of feet from her. When she was up on the nest laying her egg, her five chicks huddled together and waited patiently for her to come back down.

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  • Egg Day

    Today is Thursday, the day I deliver eggs to Tweets in Edison, WA. Most of the eggs are destined for their kitchen and many will end up on the breakfast plates of lucky customers. A few cartons are available for sale, so if you want eggs laid April 16 and 17, and are headed to Tweets this weekend, this is your chance to snatch them before anyone else does. It’s also your opportunity to see how refined your palette is. Can your tongue taste the difference between an egg laid on the 17th versus the 16th? When you buy eggs from a man and his hoe®, you’ll always know when your egg was laid, and often which hen laid it.

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  • Liquid Gold

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    A remarkable feature of the chickens from a man and his hoe® is the golden fat on the birds. It’s more like oil or butter than the fat you find on beef and pork. At room temperature it is liquid and makes a delicious fat for frying.

  • Dirt Bath

    On a bright sunny day, chickens enjoy having a bath in the warm dirt. They can spend an entire hour rolling around in the dirt, and often they like to do this in small groups. This is behavior that is innate and something they seem to need to do, like pigs needing to wallow in mud.

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    So how do birds in these cage-free “humanely-raised” egg laying operations get to roll around in the dirt in the bright sunshine and fresh air? The next time you buy eggs, ask the grocer if the hens who laid the eggs you are buying, get to spend hours rolling around in the dirt in the afternoon sun.

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