Backyard Chicken Day

The hens are settling into a new routine. Today, I cleaned their egg house and hen house and gave them a thick layer of fresh straw. The straw from the the egg house went for mulch. It contains minimal chicken poop. The straw from the chicken house and chicken yard (actually bamboo leaves and dried grass from the yard) will go into the compost pile. Since I have been giving them fresh weeds several times weekly, the uneaten weed scraps piled up into a thick carpet. I removed that carpet down to the bare earth, then replaced it with bamboo leaves until I ran out, then some fresh straw. The hens quickly pulled away the fresh straw, to scratch for bugs and worms in the soft soil.

Currently the lone white leghorn, purchased as a 11 week pullet this spring, is the sole egg layer. I bought her, and her Americauna companion, thinking that it would be easy to tell which hen lays which egg. Then one started crowing, and blamed the Leghorn. Gave her away. Then the crowing continued. It was the Americauna. So we had an exchange again. Now the leghorn is laying an egg daily. All of the eggs in the photo are her production.

With the debacle of gender confusion, and the nonlaying status of the 2 old hens, Ning wanted to give away the older ones as well. So there are now 2 new breeds in the yard - Australorp and Rhode Island Red. Both are considered good layers, so Ning should be happy. They haven't started laying yet. I think the Australorp will start in about 2 to 4 weeks.