Welsummers Laying @ 22

We approached the egg laying situation different this time, with our Welsummer pullets. Our first flock of Welsummers took at least 23 weeks for the first to start laying.  And they were awkward, constantly breaking their eggs or flipping them out of the nest.  I think the last of the three layers finally started laying about 26 weeks in.

This time, I kept the nesting area boarded up until they were 20 weeks. Then when I opened it up, I put a lot of soft grass hay along with a fake ceramic brown egg in the box.  On August 13, we got our first egg. We've been getting an egg each day, so I assume that we have at least two laying eggs.  We will give it a month before we start providing oyster shell, to ensure that all the gals are laying.  We don't want to cause any kidney damage to any of the ones who may not yet be laying. 

The eggs are about half the size of the older Welsummers.  A little misshapen, but they look fine on the inside.

The Big and the Not Quite as Big

The Cornish Cross are basically two different sizes.  I have to assume that the larger ones are the males, but that's only a speculation.  When they are side by side, it's quite obvious that there are two very different sizes. They spend most of their days outside now.  Not a lot of movement going on.

Late Evening Sun Bathing

Looking for a better spot in the sun.

The size differences at the same age.

A Dry Day in May

The PacNW has had a much wetter and cooler spring, than normal. But today was down right nice. Almost Sunbathing Weather.

We let the broilers out into the pen today to enjoy the sunshine. The plants are also soaking in the rays.

Welsummer Pullets on the Outside at 8 Weeks

With our spring temps being a bit lower than typical the past few weeks, we took a little longer to take the pullets outside. They are out.  Training them to go in at dusk, which I have learned is something that they need to learn to do since they are not being added to an existing flock.  It takes about a week to train them.  They are a bit leery of all the sounds of planes, cars, wind, and wild animals. Everything something spooks them, they all go running into the coop, which is a good sign that they are adjusting to running for cover. Today, one pulled a worm from the ground, and she went running to the coop to get away from the others so she could eat her treat. Of course, they all chased her, trying to get that worm. 😊  You will note that the feathering is in, but the comb and wattles are not yet developed.

The temps are about right now, for their age (eight weeks) and feathering.  We will have another nice flock of layers with this group in about sixteen more weeks.

Another Milestone Chicken Day at the Farm

All four of the remaining Russian Orloff layers have moved to new homes as egg layers.  The three in coop 1 (large coop) went to a young family this morning, and in the afternoon, another person showed up and picked up the one remaining Orloff that was in coop 2 (smaller coop) with the Welsummers. This will make life easier, since the smaller coop really works better for flocks of three, while the larger coop can hold five.  So the four Welsummer pullets (almost seven weeks) will be moving into coop 1 this week as it warms up.  We will clean it out today, bleach it down and air it out.  

People who see our coops and pens comment at how clean we keep our coops.  I believe this helps the chickens, health wise, by keeping their environments more livable and humane. And, it's not that difficult to do the upkeep, even with three small active coops.

We went ahead and moved the six Cornish Cross (20 days old) into the turkey coop, since it can easily hold up to eight full sized chickens.We put a LED light in there, on a timer, for a light source. For heat, we hung a 75W red heat lamp in the top center of the coop, being careful to hang it low enough to not catch the tarp on fire, but high enough that they can't get burned.  They were all clustered for warmth and security when I took the photo.  Checking in on them every 30 minutes.  The last time I checked, they were moving around exploring their new digs.  On the warmer days, we will let them out into the pen to forage and get fresh air, but they are still too young to be left unattended in the pen, especially on days where it is only getting up to 60F.  These chicks still need temps between 75 to 80F. 

Feeling the Sweet Soft Sunshine!

Such a cold and wet winter that slowly slid into spring. Cooler temps are slowing the crops.  Record breaking rain fall, in for the Pac NW! The sun brought a much needed day of Vitamin D.  

The Orloff flock will be sold to make way for the new Welsummers. They are ready to move outside.  I'll post photos when they move. 

In the mean time, it was nice to walk around to check my little crops, and pet the gals as they sun bathed for the first time in quite some time. 

The crops above are 3 different types of potatoes in barrels, spinach around red onions, and walla walla sweet onions.

These Orloffs are ready for sale.

The Clucky Flock	There's Sun!
Any Treats for us?

The Welsummers will stay for one more year.

Looky, we have sunshine :)	Buggs! Yeeha!
The Flock of Four

12 day Cornish Cross

The chicks have grown exponentially in size. I have already needed to raise the warmer to the maximum and will probably need to put it on bricks, next week. Switched to shavings today. After I took these photos, it was apparent that the light would need to be moved to the outside of the cage to protect the chicks from getting burned if they hop on top of the warmer, which they love doing.  

The wing and tail feathers are there.  On one of the chicks, other feather quills are already showing up. They eat and eat.  I think it is time to put them on a 12 hour food schedule since they are on a 24 hour feed now, and this seems excessive that they are already so tall. These little fellows are developing at the rate of the turkey chicks that I had last  year! 

Potatoes are up, onions are up and spinach is well on it's way to being almost two inches tall. The cooler temps this spring do seem to be delaying the sprouts as we experienced them last year.  Which is fine by me. Time to get tomatoes in their pots today.