Well I guess they won't ever end up on the dinner table, now that you've named them!

Very cute... I wish we could have chickens. Wait, what am I saying? My backyard is already over taxed with dogs and vegetable garden competing for territory.

Alice

Yea, I named mine too. Really dumb since we're eating some of them. I got a little twinge the evening we ate Bert, the Cornish rooster.

My Black Australorps are Minnie and Maude. My remaining Rhode Island Red is Red. Maude and Red are both happy to be petted and will even jump up and sit in our laps. They are the friendliest chickens and even seem to think they should be allowed in the house with us.

I didn't see Maude with the other chickens Monday so went looking for her, fearing the coyote had gotten her.

She has gone broody and was in the hen house sitting on two wooden eggs and two nice little pullet eggs. I removed the real eggs but she won't leave the wooden eggs. She just sits there calmly cooing to them.

I'm not quite sure what to do about this. I never see her out eating or drinking and don't want my friendliest chicken to starve to death trying to hatch wooden eggs.

If I take the wooden eggs out of the coop, the other hens lay out in the oak brush or window well or even on the deck by the front door.

Gail

Gail, you are losing Maude's eggs while hoping to keep the other hens laying in the nest box. She may not allow them in there with her much longer, also.

As she has gone broody, I think Maude is just reabsorbing the eggs she would otherwise lay. I doubt if you have to worry about her staying on that nest to the point of starving, tho'. Asking the folks on backyardchickens.com what you can do might be a good idea.

I don't know about eating them. We would sometimes name a special steer on the farm. You can lose track of things in the freezer fairly well . . .

My only other chicken names over the years have been #1, and #2, "Greedy Chicken," and such. There was a "Goldie" way back when. Hanging around on the BYC forum has had a corrupting influence on me!

Yeah, both Edna May and Spring decided the best place for them to be on their first excursion out on the lawn was on my shoulder. That wasn't the location I was thinking of when I brought them out.

Actually, Edna May & Olivia made one trip on their own a week or so ago. I left the door open while I filled their waterer. Edna May calmly strolled out onto the green grass. Olivia shot out of the door about 3 feet above ground right behind her. Olivia isn't calm enuf to search out something like a shoulder. She will leap up on the wire and, flapping madly, look me straight in the eye sometimes when I walk past the pen.

I've been bringing these 3 out and putting them under plastic milk crates for a couple weeks, an hour or so at a time. They have been learning about grass and scratching.

All the chicks were all out in the garden when they were very small - 7 or 8 weeks ago. What would that be in chicken years? Now, I'm very much afraid some of them would disappear right over the horizon in panic if they were out of the pen.

digitS'

Wow, I envy you! I would love to have some chickens. I've lived with them before and there is nothing like really fresh eggs in your cooking.

Adjusting to the great outdoors continues. The 3 Amigos were out for quite awhile today. It is so hot here, they pretty much just wanted to stay in the shade of the bird house.

Olivia made the trip out the door and back in under her own power. They all want to make up their own little birdbrains about things but I'm not going to hold the door while they look out or look back in. My inclination is to "give 'em the boot" but that would be highly counterproductive.

Fresh eggs are great and everyone should have a laying hen - just one. I don't know how this is going to work. We are supposed to have these 3 and 1 more. But, there's only 2 of us at home anymore (empty nesters).

Eighteen months ago, there were 3 of us here and 3 hens produced enuf eggs I was often carrying a dozen over to Dad's. When we had 4 several years ago, there were eggs for the neighbors. Back when I was a single dad to 1 son, our 3 hens kicked out enuf eggs I could sell them to co-workers! It's been decades since I've had even as many as 5 and I don't think it makes much sense keeping the less productive breeds unless you've got LOTS of room and a willingness to spend money on 'em.

digitS'

We're inundated with fresh eggs here too. We have 15 hens this year. Last year we lost so many to the coyotes, bobcats and bear that I over bought this year expecting to lose most of them again.

Several hens lay in the chicken house and a couple lay in the ash can by the front door. The other hens make nests in the oak brush or under the deck of the cabin and other places we haven't discovered yet. Hubby says every day is like an Easter egg hunt.

I think extra eggs are good karma. I took 3 dozen to the nurses at the cancer center last week and when we got home some good friend had put a bag of fresh Chanterelle mushrooms in the fridge.

Yesterday we took a dozen eggs and a couple of young squash up to our neighbors who are both in their 80's. They made tea for us and sent us home with a couple of boxes of Girl Scout cookies.

Yup! Extra eggs are good karma.

Gail

I would think extra eggs are like gold. I can't find a farm near me that isn't completely oversubscribed for fresh eggs. I don't think my little backyard is big enough for a chicken coop, although it would probably make the local fox pretty happy if I tried to keep a hen or two.

-Francesca

Emagineer knows of my efforts for a creative "chicken tractor" design and has been helping me with ideas. I'm fairly well limited in what I can lift, don't want more than 3 or 4 hens free-ranging around the backyard, but I've got 10 pullets right now with no special destination for a half-dozen of them. Maybe they've got a final destination but no special one.

More important, I've always had chickens then haven't had chickens then had them again. Commercial production hens live only to 17 months of age but I've read research studies that show that keeping them thru a molt can even be an economically reasonable thing to do. I have never pushed them thru a molt to get them back into laying quickly. They've just been kept for almost sentimental reasons but by the time they stop laying a 2nd time I'd have a geriatric ward in the backyard if I continue to house them.

The solution to having and not having is to have new ones every year and still not rush the old hens off to the funeral parlor. But, that means having two different age groups together. That's problematic. The solution would be another small coop.

I was thinking today what I might do with the space in my small backyard now occupied by the hoop house if I didn't have so much need for it. It catches the overflow of flats from the greenhouse in the Spring. Growing Asian greens during early Spring isn't quite a need, at least not a critical one, but it does that too. Would I be willing to turn that space over to chickens?

Naw! We are more garden people than chicken people. But, the idea got me thinking. Perhaps one of the beds could be turned into a bench. I could cover the bench with heavy pond liner plastic and build a coop/pen beneath.

When the clear plastic cover comes off the hoophouse in June - presto, chango - baby chicks move in, under the bench.

Just an idea for combining the 2 activities. I'm willing to share neither the greenhouse nor the hoophouse with chickens when they are closed up and in production during the Spring but outside of that time period - the hoophouse grows vines up the hoops. Or, it's just hoops rising up out of the ground beneath the grey Winter sky. (May need to shovel a bit more snow around here . . . ;o)

And, the way my neighbors are - - I could probably move an 800 pound Bengal tiger into the backyard and they'd never notice anything other than that their damn house cats are underfoot at home a little more than usual!!

d'S'

"The solution to having and not having is to have new ones every year and still not rush the old hens off to the funeral parlor. But, that means having two different age groups together. That's problematic. The solution would be another small coop."

I keep hens of different ages in the same pen. I just make sure I introduce the younger ones in the evening when everyone is getting ready to roost anyway.

"I'd have a geriatric ward" I know that one. I don't have the heart to send them to the butcher, so they just hang around and lay eggs here and there once in a while. They make up for their age though by teaching the younger ones bugging and weeding.

My mother kept banties in a coop that was 3x6x6 for may years. It kept everyone happy.

Billie