Three’s Company In the Garden
My Silkies: Buttercup, Henny Penny & Hazel
Buttercup the Rooster
Dirty Silkie Eggs
Hazel, Henny Penny & Buttercup in their Coop
Posts tagged ‘Eggs’
Jan 27
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Dec 30
My Favorite Garden Memories This Year
Since this is my last Wordless Wednesday post of the year, I decided to share some of my favorite ‘gardening’ events from 2009:
New Front Door & Painted Front Porch
Planting a Ginkgo Tree
Getting My Silkie Chickens & Reed Fencing
Fresh Silkie Eggs
White Lilacs Blooming for the First Time
One More Year with Pepper (R.I.P)
Blueberries & Raspberries
Stella Bella
Garlic Scapes & Garlic
Warty Volunteer Pumpkin
Veggie Harvest - Including Potatoes!
Discovering Toad Lilies
Stella Bella & Mazie Boo (Mazie arrived at Christmas)
Dec 5
Two Silkie Hens = One Egg a Day
My two Silkie hens appear to be sharing the egg laying duty. One will lay an egg daily for a couple weeks, while the other doesn’t lay any. Then they trade. I almost never get two eggs a day. Then again, I hear that Silkies aren’t known to be great egg layers. I love them just the same.
Now that it’s getting dark early they have a lamp with a regular bulb that comes on from dusk to 10 p.m. This is supposed to keep them laying eggs during the winter months. So far it appears to be working since we’re still getting eggs (one a day). Then, since the last couple of nights have been so cold (upper 20’s), I replaced the regular bulb with the red heat lamp so they’ll stay warm.
Since I’m already talking about my chickens. I’m happy to report that Brownie is getting along with his two hens and the four pheasant in his run at my mom’s (being good keeps him out of the soup pot). In case you didn’t know, I had to take Brownie to my mom’s this past weekend because of his crowing. You can read more about him here.
Because we only have one rooster now, Buttercup, Hazel and Henny Penny are more active in the coop and in the garden. This is a huge relief. Buttercup is still being a good city rooster. He only crows one or two times daily and it’s much later in the morning and not as loud as Brownie.
My original plan was to have four hens (not two hens and two roosters), so I’m already thinking about getting a couple more in the spring. I’m not sure if they’ll be Silkies or Polish hens. Thoughts?
Jun 11
The Hens Hate Us
In case you didn’t know, we brought home two one year old Silkie hens from my mom’s house a couple weekends ago. Not only do Henny Penny and Hazel hate us, but they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do and this has me worried.
They don’t eat out of their feeder, use the roosting pole, eat yummy veggie treats, lay eggs (except one) and they sure don’t stink. We did have one VERY large poop today – good news!
And here I thought the chicks were going to be the hard ones – we brought home two of those as well – they’re in the house.
Because I’m a “problem solver,” I went in their coop today to see if I could make things a little better for them. I started by raking up their old shavings – this got them all in a tizzy. Henny Penny started squawking and flapping around. Ok. The rake is bad. Hazel then made an attempt to get away from Henny Penny and got a hand full of clean shavings dropped on her head – oops. Now she really hates me. They eventually calmed down and hid in the coop corner. I quickly finished adding the new shavings, and threw down some feed AND scratch on the coop floor. Head down – I left the coop.
I hope they come out of their hiding spot soon to eat their food – I need to see more big poops before I’m happy. Next, we’ll work on laying eggs.
If you look closely at the picture, you can see them in far right (the dark spot) laying on top of each other (next to an urn of our outdoor cat’s ashes). Poor things. I’m sure eventually they’ll learn to tolerate us.
But The Chicks Love Us
Brownie and Buttercup are a true joy. They entertain us like little comedians. I’ve heard people say they watch their chickens, now I know what they’re talking about. These little guys are eating, drinking, and pooping A LOT. All good signs. They actually poop so much that we have to clean their brooder at least once a day.
We’re not quite sure if we have hens or roosters yet – it appears that Buttercup has a couple pink feathers so may be a rooster. If we do end up with a rooster we’re going to try to keep him anyway – since we don’t have rules against this in our town. It’s only a problem if he gets too noisy & the neighbors complain. My neighbors love me.One neighbor did have a rooster for a bit and only got rid of him because he was getting mean. We’ll see. I’m not one to give up pets…
These little guys have a couple more weeks in the house before we’ll start introducing them to the chicken coop. We’re still not sure if one of the hens in the coop is their mom. Maybe that’s why they hate us?
