Love Those Leghorns!

We have eggs! Our layers are nearly five months old and I was beginning to ownder if we would have eggs this winter or if the short photoperiod would delay onset of eggs.
The hens are in a chicken tractor which was remodeled from last year-we boarded up a few of the nest boxes since it seemed like the previous inhabitants only used 2 for eggs and the remaining as toilets :) It appears they can still squeek into those boxes and yesterday i discovered a leghorn sitting on a dozen eggs in there! I did a little dance in the field! Several were cracked but all the rest were beautiful inside and out! The girls and I had a pan of scrambled eggs which bordered on orange.
A little more about our laying hens: hatched on June 6th and purchased from My Pet Chicken-what can i say ... i wanted a few of each kind! We ordered a dozen and although they were supposed to be all hens we ended up with 2 roosters. The order was 3 each: rhode island red, leghorn, welsummer and araucana. My selection process was simple -cold hardy birds with pretty eggs. The leghorns of course are white, reds are light brown, welsummer a deep chocolate brown with speckles and the araucana are the easter eggers. Sadly one araucana chick died early on and another is a rooster. My crew consists of 3 leghorns, 3 welsummers, 2 rhode islands and one araucana.
They are still on pasture in the tractor despite some cold weather (down to 20 Thursday night) and doing well. We are working on their winter quarters now-partitioning off a 5x10 section of the shed and insulating it. We were originally going to house the 2 rabbits in their as well-we'll see.

Signed, Sealed...

The Offer to Purchase has been accepted, and I take it to the bank tomorrow!! I am beyond happy. I feel as if I am finally at a place in my life where I am doing and not just flapping my lips. Very empowering and it is spilling over into other parts of my life-taking the reins so to speak.
According to the loan officer it should take 2-3 weeks until we can close. I have already been sketching floor plans-we are planning an approx 1100 square foot house for the 4 of us. I am looking forward to building a house which really fits our family's needs now and with an eye to the future. Passive solar design with a very open design. We really like the idea of very small bedrooms and a larger central space that can be used for multiple activities.
Redundancy is big for me-if no power is available via the grid, whether peak oil or just an ice storm; how will we heat, cook, pump water, etc? We will certainly take advantage of the great incentives for installing PV and solar hot water. There is some uncertainty about whether we will try for off grid or net metering-it all comes down to $ though-many of the incentives are offered by the utility provider. No provider=significantly lower incentive. Fun times!
We had a good visit with my sister's family this weekend. It was decided that our Christmas exchange would be different this year. We will each bring a wrapped homemade gift, draw numbers and either select a present or 'steal' someones gift. It should be fun, with less stress and less cost. Now if only I could convince my DH's family to do the same. Sigh.
Putting the pumpkin whole into the oven working very well. I will certainly do that again. I didn't puree it however and it had the consistancy of snot. Lesson learned! I had 4 quart bags of the cooked pumpkin/squash in the fridge and my seven year old came to me wondering why I was thawing out so many eggs? I think she was hoping for many quiches. It is true that our pasture raised eggs were the same color as the deep orange squash-the things kids notice!

This is two 'homemade' eggs compared to a store bought. The color is poor in the shot, and these were January eggs-no pasture, no bugs, and they are still kicking butt!

Storing Eggs

We are fortunate enough to have a surplus of chicken eggs this summer. Our family took over the management of my father's egg laying hens this summer. We have been camping in his woods Thursday-Sunday this summer in our alter-ego existence as country dwellers. We have two groups or chickens: 8 leghorns and around 2 dozen assorted banties. We house them in two chicken tractors, which get moved across the field daily or twice daily as forage conditions allow. The tractors were an experiment after reading Joe Salatin's 'Pastured Poultry Profits'. A way to improve the soil and keep the hens safe from neighborhood dogs, foxes, coyotes, hawks, wolves and the list goes on! It has been very cool to see the square patches of lush grass spring up where the pens had previously sat.




All these eggs! We have been selling them to co-workers-just enough to cover feed costs. My father gets all he can use and I have started freezing the extras!
It's not difficult at all. I have been freezing in baggies of 6ct, and also in smaller 2 egg breakfast portions. I also plan to freeze some in ice cube trays to give me individual eggs.





Thanks Gina for the mention of freezing eggs! This is such a baby step in becoming self reliant. Now we need to figure out how to feed these guys with out going to the feed store every month! We have been supplementing their diet with garden extras and I even planted a row of mangles with the idea of supplementing the diet with rootstock. But the real answer will be growing (and harvesting and storing) grain. We have a scythe and a whole field of peas and oats, and also some buckwheat. Perhaps we will play with the harvesting part in the upcoming weeks.

Kris