Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Backyard chickens, shell less eggs, fix the hen house, blackberry jelly

Somebody is laying shell less eggs!  I cleaned the coop yesterday and found  2.  I have my suspicions but we are on chicken watch  today to find out for sure. Hester is off the list.  We watched as she laid a beautiful egg.  Pretty sure its not prissy cuz the bad eggs are  brownish.   One of the older reds is trying to molt, so it could be her.   The old graying red ....well if its her ......   But the prime suspect is Hash. Could be just a newbie beginning to lay and there was an itty bitty egg in the nest a few days ago.  Could be the other birds are running her off the nest to soon.  Might have to add a third nesting box if that is the case.    Not sure if that will work because they all fight over the same nest anyway.  Tomorrow is fix-the-hen-house day.   We are expecting that it will be a cold nasty winter so we have been brainstorming over how to keep the girls warm without running electricity to the coop.  I found one of those emergency camping blankets in my dresser drawer this week , so I will be lining an area with it as an experiment.  I will also be moving the roost or covering the nesting boxes... I haven't decided which one.  Covering the nesting boxes would be easier and it would give me an area to line with the thermal blanket.
While I am on chicken watch , I will be turning my preciously guarded blackberries into jelly.  Later this evening I may attempt to start my newest project..... weaving.  I picked up a beautiful loom for a steal at a  thrift store this summer.  The enormous crochet rug I started last winter is almost finished.  Its just been TOO  hot to work on it.  I can see why working on textiles has historically been a winter activity.
Oops..... time to chicken-check!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Readers