Friday, January 7, 2011

Getting ready for eggs

 Now that my new flock of chickens was nearing 4 months old, it was time to move the nest boxes from the old chicken house to their new pen.  Katherine helped me plant the fake, wooden eggs in the boxes to get the hens thinking about adding to the collection.  This has worked surprisingly well on past flocks, even though we were too cheep to buy real wooden eggs.  Round wooden balls are cheaper, and since none of these hens has ever seen an egg they don't seem to know the difference.
Three nest boxes was usually enough for my small flock, but with 25 hens this time, I need to make a few more.  If an expectant hen finds no room in the inn, she'll lay eggs on the floor- a hard habit to break.  I should still have a few weeks before my first egg, though.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the photos.
Do you salt the butter you make?

Bluestem Farm said...

Thank you! I do add salt to my butter, but not as much as store butter. Frankly, it adds quite a bit of taste. The other way to liven up butter is to let the cream "ripen" before churning. I haven't tried this yet.

Anonymous said...

This has become a very informative blog. It's great to be able to keep up with all of your inventions and innovations.
GRW