Winter project update

As I re-quaint myself with my blog I realise that I left my 'Winter chicken egg-laying project un-updated.

My winter project was to see if I could keep my egg production up throughout the winter days. Now we don't get winters here like America sees ->check out Ohio Farm Girl for what REAL winters are all about. However, our hennies have been born and bred in our climate so our cold is their cold.

My idea was not to falsify light for them, tricking them into thinking that the days were still long, my idea was supplement their diet to see if this made a difference. I have read a few theories on Hennies and their winter egg lay-off (pun intended). One theory talks about during winter and moulting periods, hens need all of the nutrients they are getting from their food therefore not leaving anything left over to create eggs with.

I'm not a huge fan of falsifying light hours as I think if the hens need a break then they need a break. We are just a small household so if we don't get eggs then so be it.
On top of their current egg-layer pellets I started giving them warm, milky porridge twice a week. They LOVED that! I also gave them sunflowers seeds. I have read that 1TSP per bird per fortnight is plenty. I probably gave it to them once a week.

Well it worked. It worked wonders. My hennies stayed nice and fat and the 3 of them (Mrs. Purebred Lavender Araucana doesn't lay at the best of times) kept laying throughout winter. We had a few days here and there where we would get less eggs or  noone would lay at all but we had a steady supply.

In fact, we havent seen a halt in the egg laying at all until this Summer, dark browney and light browney decided they wanted to hatch out some eggs. We don't have a rooster.

This, is another story for another day.

WOW

Wow. It has been 7 months since I last posted. Have I been lazy? Not quite. Been badly behaved with my blog? Most definitely. My poor garden has become overgrown and my blog empty and barren. I have been settling in and loving my new job. I still love it more than ever but I now have a great routine. A routine which involves 4:45am starts that allows 15 mins of coffee-in-bed-time, breakfast, husband-off-to-work time and then extra for either garden or exercise time. All before 7:00am when I leave the house for work. This week we did garden time and my garden is now ready for replanting.

The wondrous thing about my fabo job is that I have EVERY SINGLE weekend off! Tonight is Friday and after work drinks and Husband coming into the city to pick me up I am ready for a weekend of Farm work. I am after all, a suburban farm girl.

My new henny- Lavender Araucana

I got a new little henny! A light lavender and light brown araucana pullet. She will (eventually) lay light blue eggs which I am very excited about! I probably wont get eggs for another 1-2months but nevertheless they will be blue!

She is very pretty with purple/grey legs and a puff of feathers on her head. Almost looks like a little hawk rather than a chicken.

And hard to take a photo of. Araucana's are South American->Very skitterish.

My little happy hen house

My chicken egg laying project

No, I am not going to try to lay eggs as my title would suggest.

I am combining a few ideas to see if I can encourage my hennies to keep laying through winter. As our aim is always to suburban farm as organically and environmentally stress free as possible I am not going to push my hens to do anything that they aren't physically up to. So using heat and lights to falsely extend their days is not whats in mind. I am supplementing their normal layers mash/pellets with fortnightly (mmm sometimes weekly) feeds of porridge. Cooked with water and cooled with cows milk.
As well as fortnightly sunflower seeds. 1 tsp per bird, per fortnight.
These supplements I have read will give the bird the extra nutrients they need to continue laying through winter as well as through moulting. Moulting and winter use more of the birds energy.

I have also filled their little house with plenty of hay to help insulate the place. Photos to come tomorrow

I know I am not the first person to spoil her hennies but very curious to see how they go with these added diet supplements. A few things working in my favour for those of you playing at home; I live in QLD, Australia=>no snow. Also 2 of my hennies are in their second laying season, 1 is in her first and the 4th one is yet to start. The older 2 are ISA brown egg laying mix breed. SO they are all pretty keen to lay anyway.

If you have any opinions on this please feel free to comment!!

ooopsy

Well its been awhile since I last posted! Just under 2 months actually. Been too busy changing that place called work and trying to build up our little paradise!

I no longer work in the awful hell-hole I was in. I now have a much better paying job in the city that constantly challenges my brain. LOVE THAT.

On the only downside I have to leave for work an hour earlier (now at 7am). I get home sometimes earlier and sometimes at the same time as my previous position.

I drive 10 kms to the bus stop and 10kms home (that kinda maketh sense now doesn't it) and my bus ride costs $8 per day. Im saving money, saving car expenses and also taking one more car off the road. Actually I read on a sign in the bus this morning that for every full bus (I do ride an overly packed up bus) is 40 cars off the road.

Cannot WAIT for winter to be over even though it doesn't officially start for 2 more days! I always look forward to that wondrous day in June. THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR. Why do I look forward to it? because from that day on the days start getting longer again.

Only one more day!

After I get ready for that place called work (and I finish writing this) will be going down to check on whitey and her little clutch of eggs. When we candled the eggs last week we only candled two *facepalm*. It turns out the definitely one-maybe two are not fertile and off. lol DEFINITELY off. One exploded all over me and poor old whitey. She was possibly less horrified than I as she immediately set to work eating the newly exploded egg.
So then there was three. One of the three is off as well, feeling a whole lot lighter than it should. I have chosen to ignore this until tomorrow and the other two hopefully hatch out.

On the garden front everything is growing nicely. My tomatoes are getting tall and one of the original tomatoes has a few reddening right now.

Still having issues with caterpillars and I have a fantastic caterpillar-rid but it can only be put on the plants early in the morning or late afternoon. I get home in the dark and always get distracted until too late in the morning- ala today!
Hopefully tonight will be the night. On another note the 6 lettuces that I bought as seedlings are growing UP. Not out but up. Much like lettuces that have been growing for too long, long stem and all that. Hmmmm. will see how they go.
Must be off to check on Whitey
...

We're gonna have us some chicky babies!!

Unless something bad happens over the next week (yes, yes I am very aware of the old saying about not counting chickens etc etc) we should have 4 little baby cheapies next Sunday!! Not sure if Im ready, actually I KNOW Im not ready yet. I guess I just wasn't expecting the eggs to work out for some reason. Tisk tisk here I was COMPLETELY underestimating Whitey!

We candled the eggs tonight and we have blackness! and veinyness!!

So fabulously amazing! When the light is put underneath the baby chicky inside goes to the other side of the egg AWAY from the light.

Might have to spend tomorrow (day off that place of work)preparing for the hopefully imminent arrival!