Snow Came Early

We usually don't get any snow until after the new year, but we got a good 4-6 inches on December 18th and Collinsville Road right in front of our house was particularly treacherous. The ice pellets and freezing rain did make for some good sledding though! We'll see if there's any more in store for us this winter.



The chickens (including some new pullets) didn't care for cold feet and stuck mainly to a few paths that we shoveled clear for them so they could travel from coop to shelter and back. Needless to say, the days following the snowfall were a muddy mess. The good news is that egg production is picking up again after a long moult, and we are now getting around a dozen a day.

The Missing Dozen

Yesterday, All Bright Sanitation (828.894.5009) came to swap out the big yellow construction dumpsters. Despite the treacherous nature of giant machines lifting and pushing a 22-foot-long steel container filled with a ton of debris, 12 delicate eggs were found unscathed in a small nest beneath the dumpster. A little backstory: Checkers, the only hen of our three hatchlings from last July, seems to be following in the footsteps of Gloria, our Araucana "Houdini". Checkers has been consistently jumping the 4-foot-tall chicken wire fencing of the new chicken run. We found it futile to put her back in, so we let her explore the new grounds on her own despite the dangers of being a lone wandering hen. Since she is the youngest Araucana, we can distinguish her eggs because they are smaller than normal and blue-green. We found one of her eggs near the edge of the forementioned dumpster a while back, but didn't realize she had continued to lay them further under, where we couldn't see them. This morning, Checkers let herself out, as usual, and was wandering around the exact spot where the dumpster (and her dozen eggs) were located just 24 hours earlier. Poor girl didn't know what to do so she ended up just laying today's egg in the grass. While the eggs may still be good, they may have been damaged due to recent freezing temperatures so we're giving them to the dogs---not our customers. :-)

Snakes Like Eggs (Part 2)

Back in mid-July, we had a surprise visit from a large black rat snake in the back yard of our rental cottage. He was somewhat docile, so we relocated him away from our chickens and eggs. About a week later, Dionne opened the garage door only to find an even longer, more aggressive snake slithering around trying to reach the peacock eggs that we were incubating for Danna. The adrenaline kicked in and Dionne took charge of the situation.

We'll spare you the more gruesome photos, but this time the snake was decapitated and buried to avoid any future problems with our chickens, nearby livestock, or the kids. I had snakes as pets growing up so I felt terrible about this, but I'm guessing this isn't the last time we'll be killing wild animals in defense.

You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

To prepare for the hatching of the eggs, we ("we" meaning Dionne) set up a separate enclosure within the existing chicken run---a cage within a cage, if you will. Apparently, other hens might be rough with the newborn chicks and the roosters may flat out kill them. The top level of our bucket nest structure was only held in place by its own weight which made it easy to relocate to the new enclosure, broody hen and all. Below you see the two roosters curious and desperate to get into the restricted area.

For now, our sick (but nearly recovered) hen Chewhair will share this space. In fact, when broody Beach Bunny got up to stretch her legs, Chewhair took over the incubating for a few minutes.

We also got a quick peek at the eggs to see if any were cracked or rotten.


You can see here that we marked them initially to make sure that no new eggs were added to the clutch which would make it hard to track hatchling schedules. We found out that using a regular pencil is better than a Sharpie because the eggs are indeed porous...you live and you learn.

Broody Time

Since we have lost (sometimes quite literally) a few hens over the past year, we decided to let some hens go broody in hopes of baby chicks this summer. We left some eggs in the coop for a few days and several hens took turns sitting during the day, until Beach Bunny, a buff orpington, was the first to commit to an overnight stay (they normally all go up on their wooden branches in the coop to roost). Beach Bunny is currently sitting on about six eggs of various breeds, and we have marked them in case other hens decide to squeeze in and lay new ones. If the 21-day cycle is accurate, and the eggs were fertilized by one of our roosters, then we should have some new additions to the family around Friday, July 18th. While Beach Bunny squawks in defense of her nest, and has puffed herself up practically filling an entire 5 gallon nesting box, we still need to move her away from the rest of the flock so that the other hens won't go broody (which means egg production slows or even stops!) and so that the newly hatched chicks won't be subject to harm from other chickens. She seems to get off the nest periodically for food and water, but we've been bringing her water and fresh greens which she seems to appreciate.

One of These Things is Not Like the Others...

One of our customers sent us this comparison shot while making breakfast this past week. Two of the three yolks in this shot are from grocery store-bought hormone-free, antibiotic-free (but still caged) chickens. Can you tell which one is a Blue Harvest Farm egg? (Hint: the one with the rich marigold color). What a difference free range makes! Thanks for the pic, Lorenzo.

Clownie Has Gone AWOL

As of last Monday, May 12, one of our Black Star hens has disappeared. We do a nightly count and came up one short at dusk just before closing up the coop. We weren't sure which hen it was, so we called 8-year-old Maya to do a chicken-check (she's the only one who can identify all 26 simply by looks). The verdict was that Clownie did not come in for the night and she has been missing since. While we are worried that she might be a casualty of predation, we have seen no signs of a stuggle nor carcass, and remain hopeful that Clownie is hiding out somewhere on the property sitting on some eggs. The typical gestation period for a chicken egg is 21 days, so we'll be keeping an eye out for Clownie and chicks around June 2 just in case. I suppose that situations like this are simply a part of the free range practice.

Moving Right Along

Today saw the pouring of concrete footings for the garage, more of the future basement for the main house was excavated, and the all-important Port-O-Let was delivered.

Our contractor also did some grading of the driveway so that a semi full of ICFs (Insulated Concrete Forms) could be delivered. The modular ICFs are stacked then filled with concrete for an amazingly durable and energy-efficient structure. Click here for a step-by-step on ICF installation. Click on the photo to link to our construction shots photo album.

Back at Rose Cottage, our landlord's handyman finally got around to mowing the rest of the yard which I had started last weekend since it was so overgrown. Chickens were let free at 2:30 in the afternoon after producing a baker's dozen eggs. We are keeping them in their run during the first part of the day now since we were suffering from low egg count by letting them free range first thing in the morning (we suspect they are laying eggs in undisclosed locations about the property... sneaky hens!).

A Satisfied Customer

Although we eat our own eggs (and have certainly seen our share of oddities like no-yolkers, double-yolkers, minis, and monsters), it's always good to have some kind of feedback from our customer-friends to see what they think of our non-soy organic chicken ova. One of our regulars, Jenny, posted something to her own blog that shows some serious membrane below the shell from one of our hens. No bacteria getting in there! Check it out here.

Some Kind of Houdini

Over the past week, one of our Araucanas (which 8-year-old Maya tells us is "Gloria") had figured out how to escape the 10-foot-tall fencing surrounding our chicken run. Fortunately, she doesn't go far, but it has been a problem since we're not quite ready to go completely free-range. Yesterday, we were able to observe Gloria in action making a completely vertical flight to the top of the fencing where Maya promptly pushed her back into the chicken run with the handle-end of a nearby shovel. My theory is that this hen is smaller and therefore lighter than the rest of the chickens. Maya's theory is that she is simply smarter. As it turns out, Gloria does seem to have some sort of motivation.



While bringing in some firewood, we noticed a small nest of three Araucana eggs behind the woodpile and Dionne had mentioned seeing her back there during one of her escapades. It appears that Gloria was trying to find a way to keep her eggs from their breakfast plate fate, and it also explains our recent fluctuating egg count. A for Effort, Gloria.

The Chickens Have Landed

We finally had time last weekend to complete the new Sugar Mountain Farm-inspired chicken coop and the egg-layers have been relocated to Rose Cottage. The whole set-up at the rental cottage is designed to be modular and temporary, yet sturdy enough to secure the chickens and withstand the weather (cold, wind, and rain). Click here to view the entire construction process from start to finish. The chickens went right to clearing out the vegetation in their new run, and hardly skipped a beat when it came to laying eggs (sometimes traumatic happenings such as a physical move can cause them to stop laying). We were able to move them over in a makeshift cage in the back of Danna's pickup truck, although it took two trips. The old chicken run on the Smith property will be recycled into a dog run for their two new farm dogs, Abbie and Axel. The real beauty of relocating the chickens is the sheer convenience of having our twice-daily chores right outside the door versus a mile away. The kids appreciate being able to sleep in a little, too.

Eggs For Sale

Our Black Stars, Araucanas, and Buff Orpingtons are now producing about 20-something (non-certified) organic eggs per day. Even when they accidentally break an egg or two, we've got plenty to go around and they're selling well to our friends, who appreciate eggs from chickens raised on non-soy organic feed. The Black Stars lay the light brown eggs, the Buff Orpingtons lay the dark brown, and the Araucanas lay those wonderful Easter Egg hues that Martha Stewart loves so much. Each morning and afternoon, the kids love to see what the hens have left for us. As long as the eggs are collected in this fashion, there isn't any concern for spoilage. One time, Maya and I witnessed a hen running around with an egg sticking out of her behind! Now, that's farm fresh! More about how we collect and package the eggs later...