Chickens and Turkeys and Eggs....

Tuesday was a monumental day.  Well, not really monumental, but a kind'a big deal.  Not much happens around here so I pretend that every little thing is, like, amazing.  One of our new pullets laid an egg!  These chickens were our own barnyard mutts and hatched on September 1st of last year, so it's been five months and one week from pipping to laying!  Both on Wednesday and Thursday there were two pullet eggs!  And the best part is that they were actually IN the nesting boxes.  Well, one was in the nesting box, the other was on top of the nesting box.  What's that they say about horseshoes and hand grenades?  Good enough for eggs then, says I.

One of the (many) things I worry about is having all my chickens suddenly decide that it's a good idea to find a secret hiding place somewhere out in the woods to lay their eggs.  I've stumbled upon many a "secret" nest during our six years of chicken-keeping.  Under an old sink behind the house.  Beneath the not-put-together stack of greenhouse panels.  On the tractor seat.  Underneath the bulldozer.  Stuffed between the big round bales of hay.  In the goat house rafters.  Even smack-dab in the middle of the goat yard; although it could have been kicked there by another chicken wanting to play soccer I suppose.

The older hens have been laying more too.  I've been getting on average four eggs a day from them.  I guess that light in the coop is helping (yes, I'll eventually post on the illumination of the chicken coop) as well is the warmer weather and increased daylight.  Or it could be the extra helping of greens they've been getting:

Peck quickly Gloria, the crazy-screaming-broom-waving lady is coming!

What's left of the dormant cabbage plants.  Luckily I just picked the three
that had a decent sized head on them before the chicken onslaught began.

We've also been seeing and hearing the local turkeys a lot more.  I've seen them almost every day in the back yard where the temporary goat pen used to be; today I counted twenty-two!  There's lots of still-green grasses, clover and other delectables back there for them to eat so they've been having breakfast there lately.  I've been tempted to scatter some corn back there to give them a snack but then my next though was to take the rifle out and bean one of them so we can have a turkey dinner (how's that for a conflicting series of ideas; feed 'em or eat 'em). Yes, I know, we have a freezer full of homegrown Cornish, but turkey is soooooo good!  That's one of the things I'm hoping to add to our farm this year.  How great would it be to have a homegrown turkey for the Holidays?!

Not sure if we're going to get some heritage breeds from the hatchery or if we'll just get the boring whatever-they-get-in poults from the feed store this spring.  I'm leaning towards the heritage breed, but then I would have to buy at least a half-dozen because I'd have a moral obligation to keep a breeding pair around in order to perpetuate their breed.

Ugh.  I've been having anxiety attacks lately thinking that we're going to have to reduce our livestock numbers because of the high feed and hay costs.  And now I'm talking about breeding rare poultry.  Will I never learn???