Recipe: Duck Egg Noodles

These simple and delicious, homemade egg noodles, made using our Muscovy and Black Swedish duck eggs, were a hit with the whole family! I added 1/4 cup of blanched, finely chopped stinging nettles to this batch as well, as I had them on hand. You can take or leave the addition, or substitute your family's favorite fresh herbs, kale, citrus zest or a bit of beet or pumpkin puree to mix things up a bit. 

Fresh duck egg and stinging nettle noodles.

An eggy windfall - where it all begins!

Duck Egg Noodles

-3 cups all purpose flour (plus extra for rolling out)
-2 whole eggs
-4 egg yolks
-2 tsps salt
-2-3 tbsps water, more or less*
-1/4 cup blanched, well drained, chopped stinging nettles (or chopped herbs, kale, etc.) *optional*

Start with your flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle for your eggs & yolks. Gently scramble the eggs with a fork, slowly beginning to incorporate the flour/salt mixture. Once the eggs and dry ingredients are well mixed, begin adding water in small increments, kneading and squeezing the dough together after each addition. Continue adding water as needed to the dough to reach your desired consistency. Now it's time to fold in the nettles. Knead them into the dough well, until the are mixed evenly throughout. Allow the dough to rest for at least 10 or 15 minutes before rolling out. I run my dough through the pasta roller attachment on my Kitchenaid mixer, rather than rolling the dough out by hand.** 

After rolling out into sheets, I let the dough rest/dry again for at least 10 minutes or so before cutting into individual noodles.

I most often use the fettuccine attachment to make the final cuts, but rolling and cutting by hand with the kiddos is just as good a method (if a slightly messier one) for getting 'er done. 

I freeze any pasta that I don't use immediately by laying the finished (uncooked) noodles in a single layer on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and popping them in the freezer until thoroughly frozen, then transferring them to gallon freezer bags for storage. If you skip the cookie sheet step, and put them straight into the bag, you may end up with a giant noodle octopus rather than nice, individual noodles. ;)  I've had mixed success with drying them, but you're welcome to give that a go if your freezer space is at a premium.

*Because duck egg whites are significantly more viscous than chicken egg whites. You will likely need more water (or other optional liquid/puree, if using) than the 2-3 tbsps called for here.

**If you'll be using a similar pasta making attachment, I recommend starting at thickness setting #1, and running the dough through again on setting #3, and lastly, #5. Eggs noodles are meant to me a little beefy and chewy, so thinning them out further is just not necessary, and makes a lot more work, in my humble opinion. ;)

When Presented with a Landslide of Eggs...

...as my hens and ducks are wont to do, hot on the heels of 3-4 months of relative egglessness, you seek out egg-intensive recipes. These are some of the goodies that my girls and I are making this week -

* Coconut Macaroons (Note that these are the good old fashioned macaroons from your childhood, not the uber-trendy, rainbow colored macarons.) A single batch uses 4 egg whites (save those yolks!), which isn't even a day's worth of eggs. None the less, these are delish and easy enough for a 12 year old kidlet to take the lead in making them.

* Ina Garten's Lemon Bars These call for 6 extra large eggs. I'll use 4 of our biggest whole eggs and the 4 yolks left over from making the macaroons. Who doesn't love Ina's cooking? Never trust a skinny chef! ;)

* Martha Stewart's Chocolate Mousse This recipe is the closest one to the recipe I use from Mah-tha's Cookbook, where it is listed as Chocolate Mousse 2. It's my go-to egg intensive dessert, because it's so super easy (only 4 ingredients!), uses a ton of eggs, and tastes amazing. I always make a double batch of this because it is simply heaven in a bowl.

* Homemade Egg Noodles Be they in the form of plain old fettuccine, stinging nettle linguine, or traditional Ukrainian pita-ha (pirogis), homemade egg noodles are one of the ultimate comfort foods. While they don't use more than 2 or 3 eggs per batch, the recipe, when doubled or tripled, will keep you in tender, hearty pasta for a while. The noodles can be dried or frozen for later use, making a giant batch or two well worth the trouble.

* Breakfast for Dinner - Either a huge pan of scrambled eggs with a side of Aunt Alice's homegrown bacon, a towering stack of cinnamon-raisin french toast, or a deep dish veggie and cheese-filled frittata will use the better part of a dozen eggs, if not more, for feeding a stick-to-your-ribs meal to a family of four.

Our "Chuck" eggs - a joint effort between our chickens and ducks.

Putting the Laydies to Work

Need a bit of soil weeded and turned over? Sic your hens on it!

Eight hungry hennies in the tractor, day 1

I have a long-disused bed that I needed to start clearing out to prepare for an April/May/June planting of flowers. This bed is far removed from (and less protected than) our veggie garden, and as such, has been sort of ignored since we moved in almost 5 years(!) ago.

With weeds and reed canary grass getting that long and strong of a foothold, I knew that weeding this bed wasn't going to be easy. So I recruited some hard working gals to help get me started. As you can see in the photo below, they've made a decent job of it on their first pass.

The tractor, day 3, and it's path of destruction improvement.

All this, and eggs too!

Sneaky Peepers!

You know that feeling you get when, as a parent, your kids' behavior catches your attention because they're acting too casual?

Our Brahma-Cauna (Buff Brahma/Ameracauna) hen, Pegleg Peggy, (owing to her once spraddle-legged gait) was straight-up busted today, trying to zip back into the chicken yard through a hole in the fence.

The guilty party is the girl in back, fleeing from justice.

That was enough to pique my curiosity, warranting a stroll along the fence line. And whattaya know?

I knew it!

Can you see it?

Jackpot!

Bill and I had installed some new "upcycled" recycling bin nest boxes in the coop on Saturday, and we got two eggs that same evening, raising my suspicion that our hennies had already started up laying again after their long Winter's nap, but laying the eggs somewhere different and weird instead of, you know, somewhere that we could actually find them. IwasrightIwasrightIwasright!

Our repurposed recycling bin nest boxes.

We ended up with a dozen eggs from the stash spot. I've collected them and brought them in for further investigation into their possible edibility. If they check out ok, it'll be breakfast for dinner tomorrow night. If not, next stop - compost bin.

Either way, it sure is nice to know that our laydies are back up and running and that Spring is definitely, finally on its way back.

The Telltale Huevos

We don't use supplemental light in our coops. We never have, with the exception of the few times that we've been taken by surprise by a mid-Winter clutch hatching out, necessitating the extra heat.

Typically, our girls enjoy a well earned ovulation-vacation during the cold and dark months, which can lead to certain teenagers becoming a little cavalier about checking the nest boxes when she does her chicken chores. This happens -literally- every year, even though I harp on my certain teenager to take the extra 5 seconds to check them anyway. And she says things like "Ok", and "I will" and my favorite "Nope, no eggs again today!".

With the recent passing of the Winter solstice, I thought it might be about time for a few of our hennies to start laying again, so I decided to do a little spot check on the nests. Surprise, surprise!

Busted!

Seventeen eggs. Seventeen flipping eggs! That's almost $6 worth! A certain teenager was very repentant when confronted with the evidence of her ongoing dereliction of duty and offered to wash the eggs off for me. You're darn tootin' you'll be washing those eggs! *grumble, grumble*

Eggzilla!

According to a handy-dandy little chart on Wikipedia, any chicken egg larger than 2.5 ounces (70+ grams) is considered "Jumbo". Well, they might need to invent a new category for some of our laydies' eggs. Check it out -

Booyah!

Can you read the bitty numbers on my scale? That there egg is a quarter pounder! Curiosity had me googling average duck egg sizes and even they don't typically get this big. Dear hen that laid this - thank you and also, I'm sorry. Maybe we should cut back your protein a tad? :-\

Now that I've brought this egg in, the girls are suddenly keen to have eggs for dinner. They're dying to see how many yolks might be inside this badboy. My guess is at least two. We'll let you know!

Update: Mystery solved! Two full sized yolks!

Our Eggy Spectrum

Well, 2 out of 3 are our eggs anyway. 

The quail's egg is from my friend, B. She shared a few dozen of these gorgeous little eggs with me, which we will be taste-testing alongside our chicken and Guinea eggs tomorrow for dinner. They're almost too pretty to eat!

The Three Little Piggies - Week 3

Our happy little hogs are growing!

Baykin, one of our two 9 week old gilts. Brother Porkchop is standing just behind her, and Miss Prosciutto is... somewhere else.

They still are a little people-shy, that is, unless you're Scarlet, the bringer of doughnuts.

Scarlet-girl loving on one of last Spring's chicks. She's a little mommy!

This week's diet has remained mostly the same - Pig porridge once daily (a 50% larger ration than last week), a dozen packages of bakery outlet yummies and a case box of random produce.

We have our awesome fellow farmer neighbors, D & R, to thank for the produce. They get a mighty haul of unsold and imperfect produce from the same source the we used to, and are kind enough to have shared several cases of it with us this week. We probably will check in with our/their source (a locally owned grocery store) to see if there is any more free produce to be had, since our piggies appetites seem to be growing daily.

Another big dietary change is just around the corner for our porky pals, just as soon as we finally start milking our goats. We have nine does who are in milk, eight of whom are milkable (When it comes to milking, Blue is civilly disobedient). We anticipate that we will get a good 2-3 gallons or so, milking just once a day. Last year, we had just two girls in milk, and got roughly 3 quarts per day, and were frequently overwhelmed by the bounty. The pigs are here to make sure that not a single drop goes to waste!

In the meantime, our chickens are helping us shoulder the burden of providing these growing pigs with adequate protein. In addition to the generous serving of porridge, produce and bread products, we have been giving the pigs some whole, hard boiled eggs each day. First it was the Easter eggs that the girls had to dye, but refused to eat. They were so well received that I started adding a few eggs to their porridge on days when there is no other protein to offer them. Everything counts at this stage in their development!

The Naked Bird Blues

The hennies and roos have undertaken their annual molt in earnest, and man are they looking ROUGH these days.

One sad-looking Polish hennie, our Gracie-girl,  mid-molt.

Beyond the sorry look of them, chickens in molt are also non-layers. It has been over a week since we've had an egg from them. My Fall weather-induced baking binge will have to wait until the gals are feeling more forthcoming, because the idea of buying eggs has become downright, well...

... inconceivable!

And the irony of feeling thusly about the lack of a good egg is not lost on me.

My Fridge Runneth Over

How can it be that we've only been milking our girl, Sidney, for about a month now? I have a serious case of milk fatigue! Our fridge is so full of half-gallon jars of goats milk and cartons of eggs that there is practically no room for anything else.

The batch of feta that I made last week came out too soft, so I'm challenging myself to a Chopped-style cook-off. I have eggs, goat milk & smooshy feta galore, plus a few items in the produce drawer which have entered the "use or lose" zone.

My available ingredients include-
*Feta, 2 lbs
*Eggs, 4 dozen
*Whole, Raw goat milk, 3 gallons
*Golden beets with greens attached, 1 bunch
*Dill fronds, 1 bunch
*Raspberries, 1 pint
*Cherries, 3/4 lb

I have (tentatively) on deck-

 *"Spanakopita" deviled eggs (Feta, dill & beet greens) Uses maybe 4 ounces of the feta, 15 eggs, all of the beet greens, and maybe 1/4 of the dill.

 *Goat's milk Chocolate pudding Uses 3 cups of goat milk and 3 eggs.

 *Roasted beet & feta salad with raspberry balsamic vinaigrette Uses all of the beetroot, all of the raspberries, and another 4 ounces or so of feta.

So that leaves us with cherries, dill, a pound and a half of not-well-formed feta, and a crapload of eggs & milk. Cherry ice cream? Feta & dill omelettes? Aidez-moi!

In addition to all of these dishes, I see another super cheese-a-thon in my near future. Maybe a harder cheese, that I can set to press/dry/age and forget about for a little while, rather than being under the gun to use before it goes sideways? I'm also thinking of starting a (weekly) challenge for myself and anyone else who might be interested called "Use it of Lose it", about creative ways to use/preserve/share the bounty from our gardens, critters, foraging, or even a really good sale at the market. Who's in? :)

Easter Eggs Au Naturel

I saw this great little poster floating around on the interwebs, and it reminded me of making Easter eggs with my Grandma Gwen. By the time that my sister and I were born, Grandma was out of the farming trade, and no longer raised chickens of her own. She did, however have a good sized kitchen garden. While we didn't have the luxury of farm fresh eggs to work with, let alone multicolored eggs, we had Grandma's depression-era knowledge base and a bountiful garden to work with to make our Easter eggs pretty, and we did.

The tricks that I remember Grandma employing were using boiled onion skins to get a rich orange/brown color, boiled beets to make a happy pink egg, and rubber bands wrapped around eggs in crazy ways to make stripes. Grandma was definitely about using what you already had!

Little did we know that there were scores of spice and veggie colorants available to us beyond our orange and pink standbys than ran the gamut from red to violet. Then again, Grandma had likely never heard of pomegranates or turmeric, so it's probably just as well that we were happy enough with what we had.

But in this age of everything available everywhere anytime, at least a few of these natural dye-producers are likely to be found in your fridge or pantry right now! So if you're too far away to buy my purty-purty, naturally rainbow colored eggs, try out a few of these non-artificial, non-scary, food-based colorants on your eggs this year. ;)

From Better Homes & Gardens' website-

*Bluish-Gray
Mix 1 cup frozen blueberries with 1 cup water, bring to room temperature, and remove blueberries.

*Blue
Cut 1/4 head of red cabbage into chunks and add to 4 cups boiling water. Stir in 2 Tbsp. vinegar. Let cool to room temperature and remove cabbage with a slotted spoon.

*Jade Green
Peel the skin from 6 red onions and simmer in 2 cups water for 15 minutes; strain. Add 3 tsp. white vinegar.

*Faint Green-Yellow
Peel the skin from 6 yellow apples. Simmer in 1-1/2 cups water for 20 minutes; strain. Add 2 tsp. white vinegar. Simmer 4 oz. chopped fennel tops in 1-1/2 cups of water for 20 minutes; strain. Add 2 tsp. white vinegar.

*Orange
Take the skin of 6 yellow onions and simmer in 2 cups water for 15 minutes; strain. Add 3 tsp. white vinegar.

*Faint Red-Orange
Stir 2 Tbsp. paprika into 1 cup boiling water; add 2 tsp. white vinegar.

*Yellow
Rich yellow: Simmer 4 oz. chopped carrot tops in 1-1/2 cups water for 15 minutes; strain. Add 2 tsp. white vinegar.

*Various shades of Yellow: Steep 4 bags of chamomile or green tea in 1 cup boiling water for 5 minutes.

*Mustard-yellow: Stir 2 Tbsp. turmeric into 1 cup boiling water; add 2 tsp. white vinegar.

*Pale yellow: Chop 4 oz. goldenrod and simmer in 2 cups water for 20 minutes; strain. Add 2 tsp. white vinegar.

*Faint yellow: Simmer the peels of 6 oranges in 1-1/2 cups water for 20 minutes; strain. Add 2 tsp. vinegar.

*Brown-Gold: Simmer 2 Tbsp. dill seed in 1 cup water for 15 minutes; strain. Add 2 tsp. white vinegar.

*Brown: Add 1 tablespoon vinegar to 1 cup strong coffee. (Other suggestions - boiled Walnut shells, black tea)

*Faint pink: Chop 4 oz. amaranth flowers and simmer in 2 cups water; strain. Add 2 tsp. white vinegar. Simmer the skins from 6 avocados in 1-1/2 cup water for 20 minutes; strain. Add 2 tsp. white vinegar. Mix 1 cup pickled beet juice and 1 tablespoon vinegar.

*Dark pink: Cut 1 medium beet into chunks and add to 4 cups boiling water. Stir in 2 Tbsp. vinegar and let cool to room temperature; remove beets. (Other suggestions - pomegranate juice)

*Lavender: Mix 1 cup grape juice and 1 tablespoon vinegar. (Other suggestions - Red Zinger tea (hibiscus tea))

The Difference Between Success and Failure...

...is a dishcloth. Well, it was for me, anyway.

Ten days ago I started an incubator full of eggs that the hens had laid in weird little hidey holes here and there in their yard. Whenever I find an egg "out of bounds", whether it be just one or a whole clutch, I always either compost them or incubate them. The last thing I want one of our friends or customers to crack open is an egg that has already started down the path to chickenhood. Been there. *shivers*

So, though we didn't need this brood of babies, we figured that we might as well incubate them, what with Spring coming, supposedly, and maybe sell a few, keep a few. 'Twas not to be.

I started the incubator in our back room, which is unheated. It is the same place that I start all of my seeds on their heat mats and under grow lights. It's basically like a greenhouse that is connected to my spare room.

Well, the seeds don't mind the cool so much, but my poor little incubator just could not get up to temp. I upped it by little smidges each day, trying to get to the magic 99.5 degrees, but never going higher than 90. I maxed out the "increase" switch without ever reaching temperature. I knew that this wasn't great, but what else could I do to increase the heat?

I considered a heating pad. Nah, For one thing it had auto shutoff, so the temp wouldn't stabilize anyway, and for another, I was too scared that it would go bananas and somehow burn my house down. For a lack of better ideas, I threw a kitchen towel over the top of the incubator, hoping that that little 1/32" thickness of cloth would insulate my little foam box just enough to hit the 99.5 degree mark. Boy did I underestimate that towel!

I checked the eggs later that evening, and upon removing the top of the incubator was greeted with a hot blast of sulphery/chicken poopy smelling air. OH NO.

The temp on the thermometer was at 120 degrees! 101 degrees is theoretically enough to kill a chicken embryo. There was no doubt, these little eggies were toast.

I removed them from the incubator with a great deal of care, lest I drop one or smack a few together and create a noxious cloud of superfunk. Bill carried them ever-so-carefully to the compost bin, and I was left with a smelly, empty, fireball-hot incubator. :(

And so I'm bummed. Poor eggs. The only potential silver lining here is that only about 1/4 of the eggs that I candled had shown any signs of development at any point anyway, so many of them may have been duds from the start. Maybe they weren't fertile in the first place? That would be hard to imagine with the way King Kong has been, err... "patronizing" his ladies lately. Maybe they got too cold out in the chicken yard before they were found? We've had a lot of weird cold snaps since mid-January, jammed in right next to beautiful sunny days. It's the devil's potpourri, this Winter weather of ours. Or maybe, I just straight up murdered 42 potential little fluff balls with my kitchen towel and a heaping helping of stupid.

Next time, I'll preheat the incubator to find the perfect temp before adding my eggy babies. And yes, I will be using my kitchen towel turned insulation WITH EXTREME CAUTION.

Chicken & Egg Trivia

On the eve of yet another, possibly our biggest ever, hatch of baby chicks, I find myself so wound up by the whole process that I have made the executive decision to fly my geek flag and fling some baby chicken trivia your way. Enjoy! ;)

*Chicks start to peep before they even hatch!

Mine have just begun doing so, with less than 24 hours to go in their gestation.

*Hatchlings do not need to eat or drink for as many as 2-3 days after hatching.

The yolk that fueled their development within the egg continues to provide the baby with sustenance until the babes learn to find and consume food and water, with the help of their Mama.

We never wait that long. They get food and water just as soon as they make the move from the incubator to the brooder.

*Baby chickens (and turkeys too) need to be taught how to drink.

The babies are born with a particular attraction to "shiny" things, which helps them seek out water. However, a Mama bird or surrogate Mama like me needs to actually show them how to dip to get a beak full of water, then extend their neck up and back to let the water run down their throat. They don't so much gulp liquid as they do scoop it and "knock it back". ;)

*The nearness of voices (chicken or human) encourage a chick to hatch.

The babies, if sat upon by their Mama hen, would have been listening for her clucks and bocks, as well as those of their fellow nestmates, as a sort of "all's well" sign that encourages them to hatch. In the case of my babies, since they've been hearing human voices for the past three weeks, will go from dead silent to a peeping frenzy upon hearing my greeting - even while still in the egg!

This is also one of the reasons that we leave the hatched babies in the incubator alongside the unhatched eggs for about 24 hours. All eggs that are going to hatch, should do so within that period, and the encouraging peeps of their siblings, as well as the occasional helpful peck, improve the hatch rate of a given clutch, in my experience.

Another Odd Egg

We've seen a few of these lately. I'm not sure what causes it, but we call these "water balloons".


Looks like a relatively normal egg, right?


Except...


No shell at all, only membrane!

I'm going to have to research this phenomenon further, but I suspect that it is just a fluke that occurs now and then, especially with newer layers. Our girls get plenty of calcium in the form of crushed oyster shell and a very complete diet of organic, locally milled pellets, a loaf of bread per day, and all of the fresh grass, plants and bugs that they can eat, so we're not really worried that it's dietary, but can't rule it out altogether either.

To play it safe, we always compost these, though it might be fascinating to try and incubate one one of these times. Hmmm...

Baby's First Photos

12 out of 20 eggs have hatched so far. 11 of those 12 chicks have survived so far. Not the world's greatest hatch rate, but we have another 24 hours left in our 21 day time frame during which we may get a few more peepers hatched out of the 8 remaining eggs in the incubator. In the mean time, enjoy the pics of the miracle of life, poultry style, as it unfolds on my dining room table.










And last but most definitely not least, is Scarlet, reenacting the hatching process while wearing her sister's old big yellow chicken Halloween costume. She later explained that she was wearing the costume primarily so that the chicks would imprint on her as their Mama Bird, and that her dramatic interpretation of the hatching process was purely for entertainment/educational purposes. I told you my kids were special. ;)

The Early Bird...

...scares the crap out of Mommy!

These little buggers weren't supposed to hatch for another 3 days! I went to take them out of the egg turner and lay them directly on the screen in the incubator, when I saw this jive turkey pipping and peeping away.



Apparently Huckleberry had been sitting on these eggies for 3 days before we found them. Does anything ever go according to plan for us? Yeah, no.

More pics to follow as the babies hatch! :)

Obsessive Egg Watch: Day 3

Blood vessels! We have blood vessels!

AND - I think I'm seeing one heart in the double yolker. Fingers crossed that chickie #2 is just lagging behind a touch.

I'll try for some candling pictures tonight, when it's good and dark.

YAAAAY FOR CHICKIES! :)))

Greetings from the Land of L'oeuf

Put up, frozen, and preserved of the season's foody offerings this week so far -

*Spicy Pork Broth, 3 quarts, frozen
*Blackberry Fruit Roll-ups, 5 lbs worth
*Blackberries, 3 pounds, frozen
*Spinach & Goat Feta Pierogi (Pitaha), 45, frozen
*Rose Petals, Bachelor Buttons, Nasturtium and Lavender flowers - dehydrating them like they're going out of style, cuz they are.

If my back isn't still dogging me, I'll can some blueberry & blackberry jam next week. I also want to make up some traditional Pitaha, with some gorgeous potatoes that were grown by my friends Gabby & Daeg.

I also need to make another batch of feta, or else drown in milk. Same goes with the eggs. I might just be desperate enough to try freezing some, though that still seems weird to me.

I googled "recipes that use a lot of eggs" and got some interesting results. It seems like the suggestions fall into two categories -

#1 - The Dee-hhuuuurrrrs. Have you thought of making an omelet or some deviled eggs? Dear, simple, simple friend. OF COURSE I'VE THOUGHT OF THAT. The trouble, you see, is that I have six dozen eggs and counting, and if my family somehow did manage to muscle down 72 onion-laced eggs, the air quality in North Olympia would suffer a mighty blow, and no one wants that.

#2 - The "Butterified". Pound cake, custard, mousse. All yummy, and all calling for as much or more butter and sugar than eggs. There has to be a way to make something with these babies that doesn't give us diabetes or coronary artery disease, right?

So I guess that I'm going to make some more egg noodles to freeze, and maybe try drying some as well. We'll have scrambled eggs for breakfast and dinner a few times this week and see what kind of damage we can do to the stockpile. Maybe I can start whipping them at the psycho DB that flies by my house on his Ducati at 120 miles per hour?

Nah, he's not worthy of my juevos, only my seething contempt.

By the by, this evening will make 48 hours since the mega-clutch went into the incubator. I've been candling the eggs nightly, because I'm maniacally curious about their inner goings-on. I can't tell for sure, but I *think* I see some progress in their development. There appears to be a pencil eraser-sized spot of increased density in the middle of several of the yolks. No dead giveaways, like blood vessel development, but I think that might still be a few days out.

Here's a pic I took on day one of our one and only double-yolker in the lot.



I don't know what the odds are of twin chickies making it, but I'll keep candling and keep you informed about any "eggciting" developments. ;)

Sorry about that. I need to get out more.

Holy Hidden Huevos, Batman!

Each night at around dusk, we lock our chickens in the coop for the night. Walking out there, you never know what exactly awaits you. Will there be 10 hens roosted up in the rhododendron that you have to fish out, flapping and fighting, in the dark? Will this be the night that you come around a corner to see a coyote or a raccoon (God forbid!) making off with your favorite hennie? Will anyone have collected eggs yet that day, or will it be time for the lightning round of huevo-seek? You just don't know.

Well, with 23 hens, 18 of whom are new layers, we've been having to go the extra mile to track down and collect all of the eggs that they've been laying hither and yon. Those gals are crafty! They'll lay their eggs in the weirdest, most impractical places, just for a shot at motherhood.

Case in point, young Miss Huckleberry.

I knew that she was up to something, because each day when I went to feed the chickens their bread, she'd always show up a full 30 seconds after everyone else. Peeling out on her way in from somewhere down by the bog, doing the run-flap-fly-hop thing in an effort to reach the feeding frenzy before all of the goods were gone. I had my eye on her, but for the life of me, I couldn't track down the hidden nest that I knew must be out there somewhere.

But that's ok, I didn't have to, Bill did.

He heard a bit of clucking under some holly/ivy/who-knows-what bushes and stooped to investigate. Very well hidden among the greenery was our girl, Huck.



Gotcha!



Bill thought that we should go ahead and put her in the coop with the others. It isn't safe for her to be out all night. So he picks her up and...



ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME?

Eighteen eggs. EIGHTEEN EGGS. This little mama has been squirrelling these puppies away for half a month. Sneaky monkey...


The clutch, just before going into the incubator.

Bill & Liv collected the still-warm eggs, and quickly brought them inside where I hastily set up our incubator. Those 18, plus 2 more that I found in a separate nest on the other side of the chicken yard are now "cooking" away. We have no way of knowing whether or not these eggs are fertile, and if so, how far along they are, etc. We also don't know for sure who the Papa bird is. It could be Curlie, the white-crested black Polish frizzle, or possibly King Kong or Rockstar, our Australorp roos. Maury Povich, where are you when I need you?

So approximately 3 weeks from now, we may have the pitter-patter of little chicky feet in our hot tub room, once again. These chicks will either be Americauna/Polish or Americauna/Australorp mixes, so they have the potential to look... interesting.

I'm kind of hoping for a 'Lorp/Americauna mix, as you could have the best of both worlds in one chicky - great temperament, hardy as all get-out and a blue egg-layer. Ok, I'm a little excited now. :)

I've got a Lorp-A,
A Lorp-Acauna.
The coolest chick,
West of Botswana.
Got a Lorp-A,
A Lorp-Acaaaaauna.
Blue eggs,
and black legs,
and something else that rhymes here.
There's a Lorrrrp-Aaaaah...
down in, my boggggg.

Babies having Babies

Having eighteen pullets and five roosters all "coming of age" at the same time makes for a whole lot of crazy.

Can you believe that these little fuzzballs are laying eggs of their own now?


March 6, 2011

The puberty wave has brought with it a few strange new experiences -

*Waking (and sometimes going to bed) to the sound of 5 frisky boys trying to out-warble one another. Thunder is the undisputed crowing champ. His crow is like a scratchy air raid siren, especially when unleashed within the confines of the coop. Eardrums bleeding now!

*The chicken edition of "I didn't know I was pregnant" playing itself out daily. Some of our ladies' nesting instincts have not quite caught up to their ovaries, catching them off guard and thus necessitating...

*...a daily Easter Egg hunt. A high-stakes game of find the egg, if you will. The challenge being to find every egg every day without fail, lest you should find one that has somehow escaped your notice for a day or two and sat baking in the August heat. No es bueno.

*Squabbles and kerfuffles over the "good" nest box. Sometimes there's a line. Sometimes the gals don't quite make it, and you find an egg or two where the queue had been. Sometimes desperation takes over, and two hens will squeeze their fluffy booties side by side into a one-hen nest, or, even more rarely, one will sit on top of the other, sidesaddle.

The gals do not always maintain a dignified air while waiting either. If one hen is perceived as taking too long to get the job done, the others will BOCK! their everlovin' heads off until they get their turn in the hot seat, or scramble to find a suitable last-minute replacement for the coveted nest box. Sometimes this is in a corner of their coop or a batted down tuft of grass in the yard. There have been a few times that they have laid eggs under the new coop or, mysteriously, on the "wrong" side of the fence. (Are they escaping the yard, laying, then coming back? Or do they simply aim their derrieres to the south and pop an egg through the 4x4 fence, and into the great, wide world?)

Who can say? All I know is that chickens are generally under-appreciated for their entertainment value. Romances, bitter feuds, babies out of wedlock - it's like an episode of All My Children over here.

A Sampling of our lovlies ~


Curlie, the frizzled Polish Roo, looking, err... not his best.


Amelia the Americauna, in the highly-coveted nest box. Amelia is our super-jumbo egg layer. We're talking 4 oz eggs! Go Melie, go.


Beanie, one of our two Turken hens. Her sister, Vulture, looks the same, but has greenish black feathering like the Australorps.


Thunder, mid-crow, as ever.


Chick-Chick, our only white Americauna and the leader of the pack.


Blackberry, an Australorp pullet, one of nine. Her sisters, Agnes, Rockstar, Pinky-Pinky-Pinky, Skateboard and a few others are not pictured. Could you ever have guessed that I had the help of my friends' preschoolers when naming my chicks? ;)