The Farm*Homestead*Garden Blog

All things farm, garden, homestead related from the Catsndogs4us family.

Our life on a wild, woodland homestead.

Monday, January 29, 2018

The Lay of the Coop

The antics of chickens and their egg laying habits can certainly be amusing! This morning as I opened up the coop I found that one chicken had broken in to a nest box that had been closed for the night. Of course it was Rebel, she is aptly named. Why must I shut up the nesting boxes at night, well in one word ...Silkies! The silkie chickens go broody so often even in winter. If I shut up the nesting boxes so they can't settle in overnight this seems to help curb broody behavior a bit. Once they've settled into a nest box, with or without eggs, it doesn't seem to take long for the silkie bantams to get their brood on and want to stay put and wait for chicks.

As for laying habits, most of the chickens like the larger array of nest boxes on one wall. A few like the smaller group of nest boxes on the other wall and a couple of chickens prefer to lay their eggs in the bag of shavings. I gave in to that habit and almost always leave a part bag of shavings in one corner.

I'm glad we're starting to get more eggs each day with the days staying light a bit longer. When the evenings were closing in at 4:15 we were getting maybe 3-5 eggs a day. Now we are up to 8-14 and it stays light until about 5:15.

There's been a break in, someone just had to lay her egg before these boxes opened for the day.

Of course the culprit is Rebel!

This smaller group of nest boxes does not get shut at night since the silkies don't like this side I guess Rebel doesn't either.

Some shun the nest boxes all together and prefer the bag of shavings.

About 2 days worth of eggs, much better than we had been getting during December and most of January.

Monday, January 22, 2018

Release the Beasts- January

The chickens and ducks starting their day, January edition. I've had to add it to YoutTube to be able to publish the video on my blog. 


Saturday, January 20, 2018

A warm up day- Time to clean the coop!

We had such a terrible stretch of cold weather, below zero temps for over 10 days straight! Finally we're getting some better days and I took advantage of one to clean and air out the coop. I had to take the younger silkies outside to show them that the weather had improved and that I made some paths on top of the snow with all the old shavings. The silkies don't like the cold and snow and I don't blame them. Once I got them outside in the warmer and sunny weather they seemed happy and stayed out for a good while. I let the rabbits out too which is no small thing since I really don't like catching them to return them to their cages at days end. During the summer Hayley will do this but in winter if I let them out I need to catch them again. they can't leave the fenced area but they can sure send me on a wild goose, err rabbit chase until they're good and ready to go back in!