EGG!

Egg alert!  I discovered it this morning while casually checking the nesting box. I'm pretty sure Wanda was the lovely lady who delivered this special treat.  So exciting!

No Eggs, but a Video!

Still anxiously awaiting my eggs, so until I can make that triumphant first egg post I will give you some more chicken eggcitement.  It seems like I never have my camera when they are at their funniest, but this will give you an idea of the weird little chicken noises they make when they are cruising around the yard.  I was cleaning out the garage and happened to drop some gift wrapping bows, which of course they had to come investigate. 

Eggwatch

The ladies are just about 18 weeks old. This means they are ALMOST ready to start laying eggs. The general consensus seems to be that they will start laying when they are between 20-24 weeks old. (By general consensus I mean the opinions and wisdom of strangers off the internet, as we don't know anybody else who has chickens.)

This is both exciting (this is the reason we got the chickens in the first place!) and daunting. Chickens can apparently be a little wacky when it comes to their egg laying habits. First of all, I'm supposed to somehow train them to only lay eggs in their nest box. The nest box is the convenient little compartment on the side of their Eglu, where I can ideally just open the hatch from the outside and collect my egg. Sounds simple, right? 

However, I'm not sure how to train them to do this. They now free range around the backyard. I feel sorry for them if they have to stay in their cage all day long, so they are given free reign to flap their wings around our small urban plot. Although small, our yard does offer places for wily chickens to lay their eggs unnoticed, such as the two raised beds which house herbs and the rather large and overgrown pumpkin patch. The prospect of an Easter egg hunt every single day sounds really unappealing, so I'm just hoping they have some sort of instinct to pop those eggs out in the proper area.  I'll keep you posted. 

The Ladies

"The Ladies" is the term of endearment we use to refer to the chickens, AKA Maude, Lottie and Wanda.  We use this often, in sentences such as, "Did you feed the ladies?" and "The ladies are at the back door" and "The ladies are pooping on the picnic table." As you can see, the ladies are always up to something. 

Maybe because we're first timers when it comes to chickens, we find everything they do amusing and interesting.  They're great at parties, too. Stick a few city dwellers in front of chickens and they'll be entertained for hours. Somewhat less amusing is the large number of flies that their excrement attracts to our yard, but they more than make up for it with their antics. 

Their personalities have also started to come through. Wanda (left) is the food whore. She will come running all the way across the yard if she thinks you have something to feed her. Lottie (top right- we were having a moment) is the friendliest and smartest. In the hypothetical game of "Which One Would You Eat if you HAD To," Lottie gets saved every time.  Right now Maude (below) would be the bird of choice, and not just because she has whiskers and crazy orange eyes.  She's just a little...off, and kind of a pain in the ass bird. Every single day she manages to get herself stuck in the pumpkin patch, even though Wanda and Lottie manage to get out just as they got in - through the gap in the fence.  I have several scratches on my legs from having to crawl in there, catch her, and free her from her pumpkin prison. 

Don't worry, though, nobody's getting eaten. They're too amusing, even when they're being naughty. Besides, we haven't even gotten any eggs yet!  Egg watch begins August 15. 

Cat TV

The Hens Leave the House

Now that our girls are almost full grown, we decided it was time to let them out of the confines of their Eglu and run. I was very excited, as I had visions of them happily chasing each other around the yard, flapping their wings in freedom, and otherwise acting like 7 year olds at recess. However, chickens are, well, chicken. The first couple days they would hesitantly walked outside the run door, looked around, and run back inside. Lottie (black) and Wanda (yellow) circled the coop once and then laid down next to it. Maude refused to leave at all the second day. 

 

This was frustrating. I was offering these chickens the world of my backyard - bugs! dirt! grass! - and all they wanted was the comfort of their run. They've slowly come around, but unfortunately the place they honed in on was the pumpkin patch. We let them have a few days of freedom in the patch, but they were destroying the leaves, so we are going to fence in the patch to keep them out. The fence has been bought and will hopefully get put up today, so until then the hens are in lockdown. 

The funniest thing the "ladies" do is take a dirt bath. They dig a hole in the soft dirt of the pumpkin patch, roll themselves around until they are completely covered in dirt, and then just wallow there like pigs in mud.  Here is a video of Wanda and Maude demonstrating this wacky behavior:

One month later...

and they're big girls now!  Check out the pics from today: