Our First Egg

The day has come. Our hens are now 23 weeks old and when I went to usher one of the Wyandottes out of the coop to get some pictures of her - I found it! There, in the actual nesting box was a cute little bluish green egg. It is pretty tiny, about half the size of a store bought large egg. I cannot explain how exciting it was to see it there, in the nesting box, so perfect! It is perfectly smooth. Judging by the color, we know it is from one of our Easter Eggers, as they are the only breed we have that lay green/blue eggs.

How do chickens make eggs anyway?

Chickens, on average, drop an egg per day and will continue laying until they have "enough" eggs. At this point they will sit on the eggs to keep them warm, the embryos will develop and the eggs (if fertilized) will hatch at the same time - even though they were originally laid on different days. Since we take away their eggs, they feel the do not have enough and keep laying - about one per day. Sometimes, hens will lay more but the natural cycle is a 24 hour period. But where do the eggs come from?

It's All in the Eyes

As I said before, the cycle is a 24 hour period - or "per day". Chickens, just like us, are aware that a day has passed because of the environmental changes. When your chickens eyes takes in the morning light, its photo-receptors signal to a gland near the eyes that starts the cycle. There is a term for this 24 hours cycle, that is seen in other animals and plants - it is called a "circadium rhythm" with circa meaning "around" and dium meaning "day". 

The gland is called the pineal gland, located in the epithalamus, and it produces melatonin. Melatonin regulates our sleep cycle and is directly cued by darkness. The daylight (or artificial light) cues the start of the cycle and the drop of the egg cell - or ovum.

Egg Cell to Egg Shell

The egg cell begins as one single cell, the ovum or yolk. The uterus fills with albumen to protect the yolk and provide extra nutrition to the developing egg. It is what we know as "egg whites" and is mostly water and about 10% proteins. When fertilized, the baby chick will develop and live off the yolk inside the egg. The yolk will also transfer antibodies from the mother hen to the baby chicks. The ovum, yolk and albumen are enclosed in a membrane that forms along the wall of the uterus. Salt and calcium form a hard shell  around this.

Egg Shape

As the shell forms it takes on the shape of the hens uterus. The narrow end faces down.

30 Second Delivery

When the egg is ready and fully formed the hens uterus contracts and the "laying" process begins. While the egg was developing it was travelling from the ovary through the oviduct -"Fallopian tube"- down to the cloaca. The cloaca is an opening that is used for reproduction, urinating and defecating. Hens have one cloaca - or "vent" for feces and eggs to pass through (chicken urine is a white paste that comes out around the stool). The egg is pushed out of the vent with the muscle contractions. The process of laying an egg is pretty quick. It takes longer to fry an egg!

The Clean Truth

It sounds pretty dirty - they are pooping an egg out of the same hole they defecate from! The truth though, is that eggs are basically sterile when they come out. They are very clean! If you notice dirty eggs, it could be that they are getting dirty from the hens walking over them, them rolling through the coop, or it might be a health concern. The egg does leave the chicken through the vent, and so do the feces, but they pass through different tubes. As the egg travels through the last part of the oviduct, the oviduct protrudes out with the egg, past the vent. The oviduct membranes can be seen encasing the egg while it is passing through the vent. With the contractions, it is pushed out of the oviduct and released. The pressure of the delivery pushes the large intestine closed, keeping any feces blocked off while the egg passes through the vent! Shortly after the egg is laid, the oviduct retracts. 

Egg Production Comparison

Orpingtons: 100-200 eggs/year - medium to large brown eggs - lay during winter - very broody - start laying late

Easter Eggers: 250 eggs/ year - blue/green eggs - exceptional layers - our first eggs!

Leghorns: 180-250 eggs/year - large white - best egg to feed ratio

Wyandottes: 100-200 eggs/year - tinted/brown - great mothers - dense feathers around the vent make it harder to breed

If you want to see more breeds compared I found this awesome chart: Chicken Breed Comparison Chart

Nesting Box

So far our nesting boxes haven't been used for much of anything. Everytime I put nesting materials in there, they have kicked it all out in search for food. They don't seem to understand what It is for. Or atleast that is what I thought. I was ecstatic to find our first egg and shocked to see it in the unused nesting box!

As you can see, there is no nesting material left in there and they still decided it was the best place to lay! They have an outdoor run attached to their chicken tractor where they could have nested in the grass, but somehow they knew the nesting box was for nesting!

Nesting Box Basics
-One nesting box per 4 hens
- Location: A dark and safe area that is undisturbed, off the floor for cleanliness. We put our boxes on the opposite side of the roost so that they would roost and poop far away from the nesting box.
-Size: Big enough to fit your chickens but still small enough that they are snug and safe feeling.
- Materials: Try different bedding. You want a lot of nice bedding in there because as you can see, they will easily pull it all out. If they don't seem to like what you have in there - try something different. Straw, shavings, paper bedding.

Get your Hens in the Nesting Boxes
-Decoy: Put ceramic eggs in the nesting box to make them think "not enough eggs there!"
-Confine them: Keep them confined to the area with the nesting boxes when you know they are going to lay (early morning).

Fun Egg Facts

- Double yolks happen when the ovulation cycle happens too quickly, this is common with young pullets who haven't developed a synced rhythm.

- No yolk happens when reproductive particles move into the oviduct and stimulate the production of an egg. People call these "wing eggs" or "cock eggs"

- Eggs are viable for up to two weeks after they are laid. Once the hen decides she has enough eggs and gets broody, she will boost the development of the embryo and the chicks will develop at the same age

- Chickens only develop one ovary and one Fallopian tube

- If hens don't leave the nest after laying, that egg will develop before she gets a chance to lay more

- It takes baby chicks 21 days to develop inside the egg to the point of hatching

- This website shows the cycle of development inside a fertilized egg!

- The Unites States is one of the only countries that refrigerates chicken eggs

- Egg shells are covered in a natural protective layer that fights bacteria and keeps contamination out, when US egg production facilitites clean the eggs they remove the protective layer and expose the thousands of pores in the shell - which means anything that goes on your egg goes into your egg!

Have more fun facts or thoughts to share? Please comment below! We would love to see your first egg pictures and hear your first egg stories!

Feeding Chickens Live Treats - Nutrition Part 2

Live Treats

Soon after we got our first batch of baby chicks we were looking on the internet to see what types of insects we could feed them. We were spending all out time watching these little girls grow up and wanted to see how each of their unique personalities responded to bait! It is so much fun seeing their instinctive hunting skills come out. If you are worried about having unfriendly chickens - feed them live treats!

Brown Leghorn snacking on a cricket

Benefits

Protein! An ideal chicken diet consists of roughly 17% protein. For a healthy, egg laying, happy hen, you want to provide a great source of protein. In the wild, chickens will get most of their protein from insects. This is an easy, cost effects way to supplement your chickens diet. While they cannot survive on insects alone, they provide a healthy variety. If you are raising free range chickens that do not eat store bought chicken feed, insects are easier to come by then growing your own protein rich plants and are a more appropriate source of protein than throwing your chicken left overs from the butcher, or even worse- road kill. Insects also provide and fun and safe interaction with your chickens. It helps them learn to follow their instincts, hunt and trust your hands. There is no quicker way to get a life long friendship with your chicks than to offer them some meal worms!

No Earth Worms For Chicks

When you move your chickens outside to free range they will come into contact with all kinds of worms, slugs, snails and bugs! I strongly believe in letting my hens get at all those creepy crawlies. When they are eating "wild" grubs though, they are being exposed to internal parasites that can cause serious health concerns or even death in your chickens. When they are free ranging you will want to take precautions and periodically worm your chickens. Their are many different ways to do this, and opinions on the right ways to go about it but either way - you should be worming your flock. Young chicks are particularly susceptible to the adverse effects of internal parasites. Adult chickens have good bacteria in their tummies and better natural defenses against natural health concerns. Leave those worries for when your chickens are older, more prepared and being wormed regularly. I recommend chickens under 8 weeks old eat only store bought live treats. They are pretty affordable if you buy them in large numbers. If you raise worms or other insects in your home and can monitor what they eat and guarantee they are not infected with parasites then that is also a safe option for your young chicks. 

Types of Live Treats

Chicks Under 8 Weeks:

• Store bought meal worms, crickets or wax worms.
• Home raised earthworms that do not have access to chicken droppings

Chickens 8 Weeks and Up:

• worms - wax, meal and earthworms
• crickets, grasshoppers
• roaches
• slugs
• fly larvae, maggots
• Basically anything they catch - ants, spiders, lice, mites, fleas, butterflies... the list goes on!

Hand Feeding

Within the first week we began hand feeding our chicks. They quickly turned a from frightened flock that would run to the corner and hide to curious individuals always inspecting your hands for food. By three weeks old we were giving them live treats but hand. This made them fall in love with us! Since our first batch we have gotten two more sets of chicks. These we did not spend as much time hand feeding and the difference is evident. While they are friendly and docile while being held, they do not ever approach us or eat from our hands. I strongly recommend feeding live treats, such as meal worms to your young chicks!

Grit 

All birds have a gizzard which is a muscular stomach that is used to grind up food. Since our chickens don't have teeth, they swallow small stones to help grind up the food. The stones, sometimes called "gizzard stones" pass down into the gizzard to grind up their meal. Then the food can be passed back into the "true stomach". When the stones get too smooth to grind up food, they are pooped out. When you switch your chicks off starter feed or supplement their diet with treats - especially live treats - add grit to their diet. Grit can be bought at the feed store and it is just tiny little stone for your chicks to swallow. This will keep them from getting plugged up with "poopy butt". If your chicks were being raised all natural they would eat stones while foraging and would eat their mamma hen's poop to strengthen the good bacteria in their stomach.

Please share your thoughts and photos/videos of your chickens eating live treats!

Feeding Chickens Eggs - Nutrition Part 1

Chickens Eating Eggs?

Yes! Chickens love to eat eggs, it is one of their favorite treats and it is good for them!

Now some people might be a little weirded out by the thought of feeding chickens eggs, and I'd guess anyone would feel weird feeding chickens their own eggs - until you really think about it. We aren't turning our chickens in to little cannibals, the eggs we feed are unfertilized. When a baby chick is growing in an egg they feed off of the yolk. The contents of the egg are what baby chick grow from! What better source of nutrition can you ask for?

Benefits

• Poopy Butt - It has been a while since we've had to worry about poopy butt! Baby chicks have a hard time adjusting to new environments and to eating chicken starter. The first few weeks of their lives are stressful. We ordered our chicks online, which means they were shipped to us. I can only imagine how stressful that was for them. One of the great benefits of feeding your chickens eggs is it helps with this transition. It keeps them from getting their digestive system plugged up. We hard boiled eggs and crumbled the yolk up and put it in their chick starter. Their poopy butt was gone within a day!
• Easy and affordable treat - If you're raising laying hens then you will have plenty of eggs to go around. Save a few to cook up for your hens. This makes for a very affordable treat. We often just give our breakfast scraps to the hens. They love it!
• Tons of nutrition - great source of protein, beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E. Making feathers and laying eggs are nutrient sucking activities that our hens are always actively doing. They need the extra protein.

Cook them up first!

I've always fed my chickens cooked eggs. Usually I give them just the yolk of a hard boiled egg. They also love the left overs of a scrambled egg. I've read that if you give them raw eggs they will develop the habit of cracking open eggs before you collect them. I don't want my hens learning that bad behavior so I am sticking to cooked eggs only. If you only feed them cooked and outside of the shell they won't associate this lovely treat with the eggs they lay.

Egg Shells

Some people add oyster shells to their chicken feed to increase calcium intake for their laying hens. I save my egg shells! When I realized I can give the egg shells to the hens I started saving them in a bowl to go toss in the coop. They eat them up! It is way to easy to resist. I love any chance I can get to be self sufficient and use what I have. Every time I toss the shells to the chickens instead of in the garbage I feel a sense of accomplishment! Tip: If you're worried about developing an egg eating habit, ground up the shells to make a power to sprinkle on their feed.

Please share your thoughts or photos of your chickens enjoying eggs!

100 Days Old! Update

Happy 100th Day of Life! 

Our precious girls are so grown up. We are eagerly checking for eggs each day. They are living in their new chicken tractor that they love and have developed a great routine. Each morning before work I let down the ramp at around 7am they all slide down the ramp and check for any new snack I may have brought them. I check their water and leave them for the day. When I get home for work they are all out sunbathing. The other day Bromley was actually laying on her side with her legs kicked straight out. They have started digging up the dirt and creating little dust bathes to roll around in. 

Bedtime

They've created their own bedtime. At around 7pm every night they all one by one make their way up into the coop. I'd say within a few minutes they are all tucked in for the night. I just have to wait for them to get up in the coop on their roost and then close up the ramp for them. We added a hook on the ramp so that they can't stand on it and open it themselves in the morning. They figured out how to do that really quick!

They Love Their Roost

I've noticed that their roost is very important to them. At first 9 of the 10 girls we had in there would roost and they would kick poor Mara off. She would stand and look at the roost longingly. Eventually they made room for her. It worked out perfectly that then 10 hens fit snug on the roost. They all sleep on the roost, facing the wall. They will not jump off the roost for ANYTHING once they jump up their for the night. I even tried tempting them with worms. I've pushed one off to see how it would react and she was not happy. They really take their roosting seriously. Another thing I have noticed is they roost in the same exact order almost EVERYTIME they all get up there. Weird huh?

Anatomy

Something that has always been interesting to me is seeing how our different breeds grow and develop differently. They each have different features. Our Leghorns have huge combs and the Orpington's are huge. The Easter Eggers have different ears. What I have begin to notice now is differences between chickens of the SAME breed. Some of them have more prominent features than others. For example, our Golden Laced Wyandottes have different combs and different red colors in their feathers. I am a little concerned they might be different genders.  I will be posting side by side photos of some chicken anatomy with my next big update post. My next few posts however, will be about chicken feeding guidelines.

Chicken Feeding

After 100 days of feeding chickens I have learned a lot about what they can and cannot eat. I am still researching all the time though. This is my first time having chickens but I have had many pets and I know all animals have different nutritional needs and tolerances to foods. It might be okay for our bunnies and toxic to our chickens - so I double check everything. My next few posts will be about Chicken Feeding. I hope you enjoy - please feel free to comment on my posts with any of your favorite chicken treats or warnings on foods you know aren't so great for our girls!
My first post of the feeding series is about feeding your hens eggs.

Remember to keep an eye on our Progress Pages to see how our hens are growing:

Progress Pages:

Spider
Meeko
Ayden
Seraphina
Helen
Buff Orpingtons
Brown Leghorns
Silver Laced Wyandottes 
Golden Laced Wyandottes

Rabbits - Flemish Giants
Ducks - Rouen and Cayuga

Have a Happy Fourth of July

Small Animal Independence Day Safety

I am looking forward to spending my first fourth of July with my chickens, ducks and bunnies. I am excited to see how they respond to the sights, sounds and smells. So this got me thinking on how I should prepare my animals and make sure everything goes smoothly. Here is what I found:

1. Eating Garbage is Bad
   It might be a good idea to set up an exercise pen for your small animals as there will inevitably be tons of fun things for them to inspect, peck at and nibble on. Stray fireworks, wrapper, matches and who knows what will be left on the ground and all about. Unless you are a super crazy cleaner and think you can pick up every dangerous scrap before your chicken tries to attack the shiny on the ground - keep them confined to a debris free area.


2. Fourth of July = Smoke and Fumes
   Small animals need fresh air, oxygen, ventilation and not to be suffocated with smoke. Make sure your enclosure, pen, coop, is not down wind of your fire pit, firework show or grill.


3. Plenty of Shade
   I am praying for a hot and sunny Fourth of July so that I can play in the sun, get my tan on and enjoy grilling outside. Remember that small animals are sensitive to heat. Make sure they have plenty of shade and extra water. You don't want to have to check their water in the middle of your firework extravaganza. Also, although this might seem obvious, don't apply any sunscreen or bug repellent to any animal that is not specifically marked for that species.
    


4. Our Junk Food is Junk for Small Animals Too
   Avoid passing the left overs and scraps to your small animals. While it is cute to see them try new foods, chances are most of your holiday treats will not be good for them and might possibly be toxic. If in doubt, don't feed it to them! Remind your guests too :)


5. Fireworks are Loud
   This was my main concern when I first thought of fourth of July safety. When I was little we always brought our bunnies inside when there were fireworks or if we knew there was going to be a storm. I was always afraid of my bunnies dying of shock from the loud noises. From what I have read, most chickens don't seem to care. I am still going to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't get too freaked out. I am also going to set off a few small fireworks before anyone arrives (and a little at a time over a few days before the fourth) to get them used to the sudden pops, whistles and bangs.
   *BUNNIES* Bunnies can get very stressed in new situations, which includes loud noises. I recommend bringing your bunnies inside, in a quiet room, away from the festivities. Put on music, or the television to create constant sound. This will give them something to associate the noise with and help them relax. While fireworks and thunderstorms don't often frighten bunnies to death they can die of shock if they get really stressed. Stress can cause a heart attack or gastrointestinal stasis which is a common cause of death in rabbits.

Pictures are Mandatory 
Finally, remember to take pictures. It is necessary, for everyone's happiness, that you take many cheesy Fourth of July pictures of your little critters dressed for the occasion. Here are some of ours, please share yours!

Spider - Always the first to join the fun!

Bromley lookin proud

She loves to perch and puff out her feathers with the good old American Pride! She was great about having the necklaces on but did peck at them a bit.

She sat up on the coop patiently while I took a million pictures of her. She really is such a sweetie. It is nice to have chickens you can do absolutely anything with. She made the task of rounding up the other chickens seem much harder.

I went ahead and let her down to explore and run around with the dogs while I took pictures of the other hens. She was super calm. She investigated a little but mostly just found her way back to the coop and looked longingly through the fence to get back in. 

Bromley and the dogs.

Helen.

Helen got real scary looking when I was dressing her up. She looks almost like a vulture or something.

Road Runner

The Brown Leghorns or as we call them "Road Runners" were hard to catch as usual. They kept jumping up on the edge of the fence to the run. I wouldn't trust them to come back if I let them free in the yard. I decided it would be best to hold them for picture time.

Meeko and Ayden - Easter Eggers

Seraphina - Easter Egger

Seraphina is usually really sweet but you can see she was given me a bit of an attitude. She didn't want anything to do with my props and tried to choke herself with the necklace. I had to dig it out of her feathers and get her claws off it in order to get it off. Then she just stared at the wall, away from the camera. What a brat! She sure knows how to give a dirty look.

Have a super fun and super safe Fourth of July! We will let you know how ours turns out!

Eggs?

I can't tell you how excited I am for these girls to start laying. We now have 10 hens that are four months old and 3 hens that are a bit younger (well one of those three might be a rooster).

I've read that some hens start laying around four months. So where are my eggs! Okay, I am impatient.
I am looking for anyway to kick start the process. We read that they need more daylight and calcium to lay eggs. Now that they are in their chicken tractor they are getting plenty of daylight (about 13 hours per day) and we are going to change their feed over to layer pellet for higher calcium.

Any other tips? I want to help these girls along and start the laying! We have Buff Orpingtons, Easter Eggers and Brown Leghorns. The younger three are Laced Wyandottes.

We are also needing to choose a material for their nests. Any recommendations?

Boy or Girl?

Anyone who has bought straight run chicks knows the anticipation of finding out whether they brought home the gender they were hoping for. Right now we are hoping to have all girls until we are ready to take on the challenge of a rooster. We brought home two straight run Golden Laced Wyandottes and we are noticing some differences in their development. We might have a rooster!


The Hen




The maybe Rooster

Tell us what you think! Is it a roo? They are about 2 months old right now.