I've Got A Broody Hen! And Other Chicken Nonsense.
Guess what?! I have a broody hen! I've been telling everyone. Haha. I was really on the fence on whether or not I wanted to try and break her broodiness or if I wanted to let her hatch some eggs. Well, I decided! I decided to let her be broody!
There's some benefits of letting your chicken hatch babies, mostly because you wont have to take care of the chicks! Because of this, I decided it was a good time to add a couple new breeds to my flock. I asked around my local FB chicken groups if anyone had any fertilized eggs from Olive Eggers or Black Copper Marans. Lucky for me, someone in Bend had BOTH. Yippee. I picked up the eggs yesterday!
I feel bad that I had to wait so long to get the eggs for her to hatch. She's been broody for a whole week now. But people's chickens are not laying reliably right now due to the smoke in the air from wildfires in the area. I was going to get 3 Olive Egger and 3 Black Copper Marans eggs, but ended up with 4 OE and 2 BCM eggs. Let's hope I end up with all girls. (doubtful, and not the way my luck runs, ah well haha)
BUT THEN. Now, this is very exciting. I was going to give her the hatching eggs last night but decided I wanted to hatch a couple of my own chicken's eggs. Especially some of Lady's eggs. She's a very friendly chicken, and pretty cute... So... I wanted a couple of her eggs.
Look at that gorgeous dark brick colored egg! That is one of the Langshan's eggs! I HAD NO IDEA. I cannot believe I didn't know how dark of eggs they laid! I did all my research but, never thought to look up a PHOTO OF THEIR EGGS (amateur!). Everything I read just said "brown". So what I have is a beautifully colored egg, it's probably one of the prettiest I've ever seen! This is what I wanted all along!
So, in hopes of getting at least one more Langshan and Easter Egger egg, I held off on giving the eggs to Miss Broody Hen for another day. So, tonight I will be giving her the eggs, no matter if I get another Langshan egg or not.
Edit to Add:
I placed the eggs in the nesting box for Miss Broody! She was up an eating, so I was thankful not to have to push her around. I watched her come back and sit on the eggs like nothing's changed! :) I marked them all, because I will need to know which is which. She will steal any other eggs laid in the area and sit on them. Haha.
Other than my broody hen. My chickens seem to be doing quite well save the smoke in the air. I am really enjoying having chickens way more than I thought I would.
The Faverolles haven't started laying yet that I've found, which is disappointing. I have a feeling I should have a large cache of eggs somewhere on these 20 acres... But I haven't found that yet! I really think the smoke in the air is affecting everyone's chickens pretty badly. I should now be getting eggs from everyone, but I am still only getting up to 5 eggs a day. Some days, less than that. I have 19 egg laying age chickens now...
However, I did get a few funny eggs from SOMEONE that I found on the poop deck. Here's the weird egg, and then the weird egg in comparison to a regular not-weird egg!
Here's a cute video of Lady nesting before laying her egg. I love when she shakes her head to get the shavings off her face. It's so cute how she throws shavings on her back. I wonder why chickens do that? Haha.
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Oooh that dark brown egg is so beautiful!! That's great that you are going to hatch a few from your own flock. I'm so happy for you, you will LOVE the experience of watching a Mama Hen in action, they are so brilliant.
I am a little worried about the possible need to separate. I know chickens are dicks, and oftentimes may kill the babies! Do you have any recommendations on what to do for that?
I think that Mama will be able to kick any of your other chicken's asses! You'll see...they're bloody vicious when they have their new chicks.
Oh gosh, I hope. Though, I like to err on the side of caution... I'd really be upset if someone killed the babies! Assholes. Hahah. I do have the means of separating them. It will be something I consider of the next 21 days while she lays on those eggs!!
Yep, you'll come to the right solution for you <3 <3
I love chicken posts. Our hens dont like the rooster we got them and have been refusing to lay eggs for a while. We are probably going to take him to the auction to see if that helps. Yours eggs are super pretty!
Oh really?? That's very interesting! Huh. How old are your hens?
Only 2! They used to give us an egg a piece each day. Now we are lucky to find one a week.
Oh! They could be molting?? This is typically the time for that. Can you get more chickens? For a family, you should okay, not should but, for eating egg purposes, at least 2 chickens per person! Are you only allowed to have two, wherever you are?
We are on 10 acres outside town. We actually have 5 2-year olds and 10 2 and 3 month olds. The hens stopped after we incubated and hatched two batches of their eggs. They aren't losing any feathers so I don't know if they're trying to molt or not. I think they seriously hate that rooster. He has already served his purpose, fertilizing eggs, so we dont really need him anymore. I'm not attached to him (we have only had him 3 months) so it won't hurt my feelings much if he goes.
Ah, I get it! I have three roosters right now. I like them all for different reasons. But there is the one that forgets who is boss and I have to kick on occasion... He comes after me - only sometimes. Other than those hiccups he seems to do a decent job at protecting the ladies and crowing... a lot. Mostly when I am out and about by the coop. haha.
I am so glad you have more than 2 chickens! I must have read your comment incorrectly hahaha - sorry about that!
So far this guy, Foghorn, and the other rooster he came with, Lloyd, haven't been aggressive towards us. Only each other. Even then, Lloyd lives with the sheep while Foghorn is the lady's man.
Hahah Lloyd is an amazing chicken name!!!
My little 2 year old bantam kicked my biggest rooster's (SLW) ass! Ha he did bleed but it wasn't major and he healed up quickly! But I was happy that the bantam made his place in the flock! I just got him like two months ago from a friend. I did a week or two long introduction separation in a wire dog kennel so the rest of the flock could get used to him!
Some beautiful eggs from the Langshan!
Isn't that the truth! Can you imagine my surprise when I found that in the nesting box?! Hahaha. I didn't know I had any chickens who would lay that dark of eggs for me!
Those broody hens though! Back when I still had chickens it was always fun trying to get the eggs out from under a broody hen. The Rhode Island Reds would get broody, but they wouldn't stay broody so they wouldn't stay on the eggs for more than a week or so. Too hybridized, I think. Anyway, I'd have to get the eggs from under them because of that. I got pecked more than a few times, I started wearing leather gloves to gather eggs. :-)
This one who is broody is a Cuckoo Marans. I will consider myself extremely lucky that the chickens I have aren't complete assholes. Hahaha.
I coined a new word the other day - "ChickENVY"... I want chickens one day!
Thanks for sharing... :D
Is there any reason you can't get them now? They are SO EASY. Surprisingly. Well, at least I think so!
Errrr... I'm about to move again, and probably to a stuffy surburb :-r It's all about the land! (And the silly rules).
Noooooo don't move to somewhere you can't do the things you want to do! At least don't get in an HOA. Haha
Gotta get my career on track before I have more freedom XD
I'm sure both can be done!!
Errr... at least relative freedom XD
At least live somewhere you can have a couple chickens! Hahha. :D
I didn't hatch any chicks this year, and when I read your post, I regretted it for a minute. Have fun with your broody.
No? Darn! There's still time! Haha. I hope that I didn't wait to long to give her eggs. There's still hope! Haha. I hope! I am thankful she's not terribly mean, I have heard some horror stories! How do you usually hatch chicks? I am happy to be doing it "naturally" with my broody hen! Though I do have an incubator as well!
I do both as well. I also love colored eggs. Here is a picture of one of my incubators from last summer with my fun colored eggs.
OOOH, your olive eggs are awesome!! Did you breed them or buy them? What an amazing array of colors! I am envious! WHat breeds do you have?
Do you do any breeding projects?
I breed them. It was fun. I used Black Copper Marans and Crested Cream Legbars. I used to breed both breeds and keep an olive egger pen, but this year, I didn't do any breeding. I lost my CCB rooster over the winter and I had some other things going on, so my chicken numbers and activities are down. :)
I would love to read some detailed posts from you on breeding projects! It's something I'm interested in doing but it feels a bit overwhelming with all the jumbled info that's out there!
I'm envious.. one day I'll get a flock of my own. I really love the diverse colours of your eggs. They'd look good in my food* haul photos!
Great post well done :)
Good haul photos?? Tell me more? I think I am missing something.
I am sorry you can't get them right now, but once you do, you wont regret it!!
My goal for having chickens was to have many different colored eggs. Haha. Pretty superficial, but I knew that it would make more way more happy to do all my chicken chores if I knew I would be getting fun colored eggs!
I'm sorry I was on my phone and it auto corrected. I meant that all these different coloured eggs would look great in the photos I post about my local Food Haul's each week Like This One but we only get boring pain coloured eggs.
My bad typing strikes again :-/
Oooooh I gotcha now. Haha no worries! Yes they would look awesome with those posts!
your eggs are beautiful! thanks for sharing
Thank you!! :)
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Those are beautiful eggs! Nothing is happy with all this smoke! We finally got a break here in the Willamette Valley, but that probably means the smoke is going your way now. It will take a lot of rain to finally get all these fires out. Folks will be happy to see the rain return! Good luck with hatching those eggs and I hope your chickens get to laying more of them soon!
Thanks!! I love the eggs a lot. I hope that the smoke dissipates soon. It's been a rough summer with it...
Been thinking of you lately! There's a poultry show happening on Oct. 7th in Corvallis, will you be attending? I am thinking of going, and merging a visit with my grandparents.