Sunday, April 11, 2010

Red hens and LOTS of eggs




Charlotte and Marlin, I hope you are reading this as our 20 red hens thank you for power washing the hen nesters and feeders! When I bought those I honestly thought one of the nesters would end up in my house and I was going to pot herbs in the feeders. Ha! Who would have guessed they would end back up in a hen house.
LaVern saw an ad in a shopper for one year old laying hens for $3.00 each. You pay that for a baby chick. No phone number but I was sure the name was Amish. So the next morning we loaded crates and headed into Missouri. Sure enough an Amish homestead. (good thing LaVern googled the address or we would have never found it). We thought they were probably all sold. Wrong. He had 200 hens to sell! We took 20. They are wonderful hens. Very calm. We can walk up and pick them up and they follow us around. We are free ranging them so they are out in the grove digging and scratching and cleaning the place up. We hope they are eating the ticks.
Are they layers? Oh my, yes. And they did not quit laying because of the stress of moving. First day 18 eggs, next day 16 and so far 16 again this morning. ha ha ha Nice large brown eggs. I took two dozen up to our neighbors and am going to buy an angel food cake pan. I'm thankful LaVern likes eggs sandwiches and deviled eggs! We bought extra hens thinking that because we are free ranging them we might lose some but time will tell.
Future blogs: Hou Hou Hercules, white rocks and electric net fencing. Going to another Amish auction this Thursday. 8 horses, two buggies and porta huts listed. Take joy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't beat those eggs LOL (unless ya wanna scramble em) Better than what you get in the store!

johnnyb said...

Carolyn,
You guys are so blessed. I can't believe the finds you have had. It will be next year before we get chickens, just too much to do to get to that point. Had a huge disappointment, the guy buying our house is a pathological liar and really doesn't have any money. Sooo it is back to square one for us. Say a prayer.
Miss you, Carol