Heat'n up the inky

Emma is our chicken farmer. Her flock keeps us swimming in eggs. She dusts them for mites in the summer, feeds, waters, clean nesting boxes and collects eggs every day. We do not sell eggs as we can put down a dozen eggs a day quite easily. Last year we found that locally raised green egg laying pullets were hard to find and came with a pretty price tag. I remembered from my early chicken days that if we have a flock of leghorns bred by an americauna/araucana rooster it produces chickens that will all lay green, blue or pink eggs. So we planned our flock accordingly. We've set up past flocks to produce red stars and black stars, which are sex-linked.

We disinfected and prepped the bator yesterday. We've been collecting eggs that are just right. Uniform, pointy on one end, blunt on the other, solid shelled as opposed to porous and less than 5 days old.

Emma marked each one with symbols so we can keep track of their rotation as every day mamma hen turns each egg at least twice. It keeps the chick free-floating within the shell. We only have 1 roo for 14 or so hens, so the fertility rate will be lower than normal. A roo can only handle 9 hens efficiently, so when we candle them in three days we expect to be throwing out a few.

We are plopping these guys in for our 2010 Petting Zoo

Most citys in Whatcom County allow chickens within city limits now. Lynden allows up to 6 hens! I know of several familes who are establishing their first mini flock by keeping them in chicken tractors. How fun!