We’re on egg watch around here. The girls are supposed to start laying sometime this month, or so we were told. Hens start laying eggs between 4 – 6 months of age, and our are just about that old. I’ve also learned that when their combs and wattles (that stuff on the top of their head and their cheeks) get big and turn bright red that’s a good sign — ours are definitely getting there in that department. And then there’s some other thing you can do to feel around their pelvic bone to see how wide the opening is, but I’m not going there.
And so we wait.
One thing we have learned is that chickens require 14 hours of light each day to produce an egg. Who knew? So since our days have gotten shorter and there’s not 14 hours of daylight now, we needed to rig up a light source for them. Jason made a little Home Depot run and voila – there is light!
The photo above shows what the coop looks like from 5 – 7:30am every morning. We have the light set to a timer and it comes on each morning to wake the girls up. There they are below — awake, but still on their perch — enjoying their new light behind them.
And since we haven’t shown you any pictures of the girls lately, don’t you want to see how big they are getting? They are still as silly as ever.
Yard to Fork 