My New Chickens

So, as most of you know I said goodbye to the meat chickens on the 18th.
I was all prepared to go the winter without any hens and was secretly happy that my husband now did not have to prepare the coop for the winter.

BUT

last Sunday I received a call from a friend. She said I quote..." I have a rooster and 9 hens sitting in my driveway waiting for you. "

Yup she did....so off to the city we went. When we arrived we found this crate with 10 chickens in it!!

O.K.....weird...but o.k

Here are the hens. The rooster is the cute black and white one. they are about a quarter the size of the meat ones. They were a little traumatized for a bit, but I think once they realized that I will feed them scrap spagetti they will like me more.

There is definitely truth to the pecking order thing. Four of the Hens have no feathers on their backs from being picked on by the others. I'm not sure what happened in that crate...Actually I don't want to know.
Anyhoo the first night the bareback hens were shunned from the coop. They huddled together in a corner in the yard while the rooster and his little harem were safe in the coop.
Yes I stayed up all night worrying about them...stop laughing...

Just so you know...they have worked things out now and they all get to sleep with the Rooster !! ha!

Watching them is fun. They talk to us, and show off their scraps of food. They are a little more skittish than the meat ones though....Peyton finds them fascinating :)

So far I have received 9 eggs in about a week. They laid 3 in one day and have gone two days with nothing. when it is rainy and cold they are unhappy and I don't get any eggs.
On sunny days I get more.
Picky gals I tell y'a!!


Notice that some eggs are brownish and some are white. Yes they taste the same as our other eggs. I will do a comparison for fun soon.

The weather is getting much colder now. It is zero at night and not good for the chickens. We are scrambling to fix up the winter coop. I will post about that next time.