I ’ve been buying egg for 2 calendar month . My family does n’t eat very much core , so we technically pass under the flexitarian , or semi - vegetarian class , making egg very important to my kinfolk . When the female child are n’t put down , our option is to eat up more gist or buy bollock .
It ’s sticky to bribe ballock and chicken provender , but when the hens get old and it ’s winter , ’ tis the season . The biggest caution to raising urban chicken is that our flock sizes are so limited and our layer are also deary . Culling to make room for younger layer just is n’t what we do .
The weather has n’t been as cold as it should be this time of twelvemonth , so the chickens have been out ranging , they ’ve been participating , and when it ’s ardent , they do n’t have to convert as much of their food zip to ride out lovesome . The day are lento getting longer now , but the twenty-four hours are n’t long enough to see egg from the aged hens until the destruction of February .
My husband went out to button up the coop for me after sunset on Christmas Eve while I was interfering in the kitchen baking bread for our French toast the next morn — the French toast for which I had to buy eggs — and he deliver me an orchis !
I did n’t expect an testicle assembly couple more weeksyet , but once all the fryer get started , I should n’t have to buy any more eggs through the winter . That ’ll be a relief !
We did n’t get another until Dec. 26 , and it ’s a slightly different tone than the first , so it appear half the fryer are laying . The third eggs was laid Dec. 28 . It ’s the exact same shade as the first , so I anticipate the same layer , but it ’s heavy . It could very well be a bivalent vitellus , as double egg yolk are quite common in young layers .
Without keep apart the chicken singly , I wo n’t likely know which pullet the eggs belong to to , but the different shades give me clues .
When an total sight is lay , it ’s loose to match eggs by color and soma . The refinement and form become so familiar that when one type is dead missing , it ’s obvious that someone has discontinue laying . The easiest for me is when my only white bed stop laying . It ’s always exciting when she resumes set to find a blaze out blanched egg in the nest . alike , if my Easter Egger lay drab or green I ’ll have intercourse her ballock on sight , but if she terminate up repose a shade of brown , her eggs will blend with the others . However , I ’ll still be able-bodied to line up egg and identify four different character , one type for each frier .
For now , it look like I can expect an testicle every 48 hours , but that schedule wo n’t last long . Soon I ’ll be stockpilingdozens of eggsin all the egg cartonful I ’ve pull together in the last eight weeks .
I have enough store - purchase eggs to get us through the rest of this week , so I have n’t cracked start the freshest eggs . They feel too special . Twenty hebdomad of feed investing makes those first egg mighty valuable !
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