April 20, 2015

A new lease on life?


It is Spring and our hens are laying. We are getting about 5 eggs every other day with a couple in between. Not bad for 4 new girls and 2 old ones, of which one is truly "henopausal" because we are getting all shades of blue eggs, and her egg would be brown.

The new hens are "easter egg layers", so named because of the blue eggs. I had some of these chickens in my first flock in 2007, and one hen remains: Goldie. Some of the new girls are just as gold-colored as Goldie, or even more so, but among the old flock Goldie was "it". She has always been calm and friendly, and now the new hens are here she seems happy and in her element. They all sleep around her on the roost and she never appears to peck at them or chase them off. And when the new hens started laying, Goldie started up again too. Her first egg, much bigger than the newbie eggs, was double-yoked and she has been going strong ever since. What a hen!

I do indulge her as her favorite routine is eating oats out of my hand. Other hens want "scratch", but Goldie pulls up her beak at that and only want oats. I wonder if I should get her some reading glasses because I am not sure she sees that well: she nails me with her beak trying to get the tastiest grains.





1 comment:

webb said...

It's nice that Goldie is still going strong, and that she has new friends this spring.