January Chicken Report

Just a quick post on my chickadoodles. The are lookin' good. The molt is over and the the feathers are in.
Here's the Roadie...

She is our attack chicken. She's just one gene short of being a rooster. I don't trust her. She tends to walk alone and she jumps at the coop door in the morning when we come out to give the chickens their scraps and fresh water. Red is pushy and disagreeable but she's a good brown egg layer... and she is looking really good right now.

Then there's the Plymouth Rock. This is our big bird. She is a great hen and a good layer. She lays a large  light to medium brown egg with a touch of pink. and she seems to mingle well with the other big hens.

Her only bad habit is that she picks on Squeekie, our Bantam hen. She doesn't really harm Squeek'.  It's more just her size that makes Squeekie run. The Rock kind of walks around  with an air of, "I'm the biggest and I don't have to fight over anything. I only have to walk up and take what is rightfully mine."

 The Ameraucanas follows the Plymouth Rock around and get along with everyone. We have two of them. The Ameraucana's have tails and muffs unlike the Araucana breed. The all lay blue or green eggs.. or somewhere in between.

All the big hens are looking really good in their new spring feathers.

And then there's Squeekie, our sweet little Bantam hen.

I want you to know that this is her 10th year. She is a little old hen with a charming personality. She doesn't lay eggs anymore and she's dragging one of her feet. She must have had a little stoke or something. But this doesn't stop her. She free ranges with the other hens and can keep up with any of them.

She is a beautiful Belgian Bearded d'Uccle Bantam that, possibly because of bad breeding, does not have a beard and she is not booted. (consist of long feathers covering the legs that look like boots.) Squeekie is a mille fleur variety of this bantam. Mille Fleur describes the plumage associated with this bantam. It's very beautiful and  distinctive, The Mille Fleur plumage consists of  dark, brown feathers divided by a black bar and tipped with white spangle. I should have named her Milly, but Squeekie is more accurate. Her sister, Henny Penny and our Bantam Rooster, Napoleon, are gone. She is the lone survivor of the bantam flock.
I love this little hen. She is a chicken in a million.

Squeekie was checking out the cat box in the garage, the other day.

Yes... our outdoor cat has her own cat box in the garage and uses it exclusively... and she likes it kept clean.
Squeekie checked out the cat's box and Annie watched her the whole time. But Annie never went over and discussed it with Squeek' or chased her away. I guess the have an agreement.. an understanding. Looking is OK, as long as Squeek' doesn't try to use it.
Annie is very patience with the chickens. I think she is a little afraid of them. She sits and watches them. She will even follow them around sometimes, but always at a distance and always with caution.

So the hens are laying again. The molt is over. We got three eggs a day this week and today we got four. Four eggs a day is plenty for us and the neighbors. So what do I use these beautiful eggs for, you ask?

Well, today I made some cookies.
Mixed up the dough...

And then... before I cooked them...
I ate some cookie dough.
It's tradition. Fresh eggs allow this indulgent behavior.
A bad habit that, in 50 or 60 some years, has never made me sick.

Thank you Chickadoodles.
Keep those eggs flowing.

Strange Behavior in the Hen House.

You do remember how excited I was about the very small amount of snow we got here. That night Butte Mt. was looking like a picture perfect study in loveliness. Like Mother Nature dusted her with powered sugar.

And across the canyon, the hills were covered with a beautiful sifting of snow as the fog set into the river valley.

The night was so cold and we woke up the next morning to a frosted world of beauty that I recorded in my Wordless Wednesday post.
Annie, our cat who sleeps in the garage, has a new bed and seems to be quite happy on these cold nights. She complained a bit the next morning but I set "her" lawn chair out in the sun and she was a happy camper for the rest of the day.
But, the hens were a different story. I guess I should pay more attention to them when it's this cold. Maybe I should keep a light on in the hen house. I don't remember this being a problem during other exceptionally cold winter nights.
When I went to get the eggs, I found six of them. Usually they are in the big laying box and sometimes one or two are in the little row of boxes we built above the roost. But all the eggs (I'm not complaining mind you, just surprised.)that I found the morning after the snow were in odd places. One was in the middle of the floor in the hen house, two more were in a corner under the laying box and another one was... well... kind of strange looking.

As if one of the hens was so cold that she had to squeeze it out of her little frozen rear end and it formed a goose bump as it hit the cold air.
And look at the colors...

Another was not the normal brown or blue/green, but a muddy grayish color.
I'm no chicken expert and I know nothing about raising chickens in cold winter areas, but I do think that my hens reacted to the cold and it affected their eggs.
The production is fine.

Five or six a day is more than enough to eat and give to neighbors. I just wonder if the cold was almost too much for them. We always lock them in at night. We have had cold weather before but I never saw the eggs so scattered or with goosebumps.
Does anyone, who has chickens, know what might have happen? Can a hen get so cold that she doesn't want to find her favorite "spot" to lay her eggs? So she just drops one anywhere?... with a goose bump on the end of it?
They all seem fine today. It warmed up.
The Little Red Hen attacked me, as usual. She is going to be "dinner" if she doesn't stop this,
 "I want bread (cracked corn, scraps, etc...) and I want it NOW." attitude.
She's the first hen I have ever had that jumps up and demands whatever it is that you have in your hands.
AND... she's picking on Squeekie.
Fair warning Little Red Hen.