… Carmi. The creative folks at Bainbridge Farm Goods will be getting in touch with you soon.

I wish that each and everyone of you could have won. But, next best is that Bainbridge Farm Goods is offering a special 25% discount to readers of HenBlog! Just type HAPPYFARMER when checking out! Offer good through December 14, 2011.

This was so much fun, that I’m already thinking of what I can giveaway next.

Before there were battery-cage “farms,” eggs were a seasonal food. By New Years an egg was precious. In the winter eggless gingersnaps were baked instead of layer cake. Eggs weren’t eaten for breakfast. A farmer could sell an egg in February for twice what a June one brought, and that income often made all of the difference in a farm’s ledger. A productive hen would be expected to lay about 140 eggs her first year. Egg production decreased 20% a year after that. Once in awhile a hen laid through the winter. Once in awhile a hen had a short molt and resumed laying before the others. These hens were kept and bred. But, by age three the others would be in the stew pot.

Today a hen, in a large commercial operation, is genetically designed for maximum egg production, and is kept in a warm barn, with light 14 hours a day, fed a controlled diet designed for maximum egg production, and is expected to produce upwards of 260 eggs a year, some almost 300. By the end of her second year, before her second molt, she’s spent. Most are thrown out – they aren’t even worth putting into soup. I think about this when I make decisions about how to care for my hens over the winter, and what I expect from them.

I don’t keep chickens for a cheap source of food, or even to have eggs to sell to my neighbors. I have chickens because I want fresh eggs for my own table and because I like having hens in my backyard. I have a lot of chickens for a three-person household, so they don’t have to all earn their keep. The girls in the HenCam coop are retired. Agnes, being a hybrid designed for laying, still leaves me a few eggs a week. She takes an amazingly short two-week break for a molt. But the other old hens only use the nesting boxes for a cozy place to take a rest. Agnes can’t keep me in enough eggs for breakfast, and unlike a farmer in 1921, I do want eggs and toast on cold winter mornings. So, this past spring I got a new batch of chicks, the Gems (so-called because I named them all after pretty rocks).

The Gems are a mix of breeds that mature and lay eggs at varying rates. They were slow to start laying, and then it got into late fall, with shortened daylight hours and dipping temperature. I was hoping for a few eggs this winter and not expecting to fill my egg cartons. But, they’re pullets. They’re healthy. They’re fed well. This is what I had in my egg basket yesterday:

The big egg in the back is from Agnes. The rest are from the Gems. That’s a wealth of eggs. I’m giddy with eggs. I made a double-batch of Peach Bread Pudding for my local library’s employee appreciation lunch. I had enough for a cheddar omelet for breakfast. I made vanilla banana pudding. There are hard-cooked eggs in the refrigerator for snacking. And I still have two full cartons calling to me from the fridge.

This abundance isn’t going to last. Night will fall earlier. It will get colder. But, kept in the refrigerator, in a carton, an egg will remain fine for baking for up to eight weeks. If I can rein in my baking exuberance, the Gem’s eggs will see me through until late February when the spring laying season begins.

I’m often asked if I light the barn at night to encourage more egg laying. Off and on over the last fifteen years of hen-keeping, I’ve experimented with this. But what I’ve learned is that the pullets lay anyway. The really old hens won’t lay whatever you do. As for the girls in the middle, I think that they deserve a break. It’s hard work and physically depleting to lay an egg day in and day out. After the first year, a chicken molts and grows new feathers which uses up even more of the hen’s resources. They need a break from egg laying to do this. I believe that a winter’s rest sets them up to have a healthy and productive laying season, hopefully well past the age when the hens in the factory farms are discarded.

Just when I was mulling over what my next giveaway contest would be the talented people at Bainbridge Farm Goods contacted me. Lucky day! I adore their colorful, funky, retro-inspired and yet totally modern farm signs.

The winner of this contest will have their pick of a Bainbridge Farm Goods Sign. Don’t have chickens? Then I suggest the Be the Black Sheep sign. All you have to do to enter is to look over their catalog and let me know which is your favorite sign. Please, one entry per person here on this blog. Want an extra chance? Enter a second time on FaceBook (please leave your comment on this post so I can keep track of everyone!)

The contest will run until 10 pm EST on Wednesday, December 7.

Good-luck!

Update: the contest is now closed. However, Bainbridge Farm Goods is offering a special 25% discount to readers of HenBlog! Just type HAPPYFARMER when checking out! Offer good through December 14, 2011.

Two days ago I let the hens out to free-range. Tina walked into a fence. The Polish can’t see where they’re going.

They can’t even see where their feet are. They’ve been walking in an exaggerated strut, putting their feet down as if each step might be dangerous.

Sometimes Polish are bullied. They can’t see the other hens to know to get out of the way. And when they do try to scoot out of harm’s way, they walk into walls. In my flock, Tina and Siouxsie aren’t bullied. But the other hens do think they’re crazy.

Both Polish hens molted, and their brand-new, full, white, feathery top-knots are fun for me look at, but not so fun for the hens to live with. It was time for new coiffures.

One good thing about Polish hens is they’re easy to catch – they can’t see you coming – so it’s easy to scoop them up. I snipped away until I could see the eyes. There, that’s better, isn’t it?

My very first chicken was a hand-me-down from a neighbor, who after a 4-H project with her daughter was left with one small white bird. I said I’d take the hen if she was done with chickens, and so I got Buk-Buk and a dilapidated coop (which was mostly a box with a small wire pen attached.) Buk-Buk was the gentlest, sweetest hen. She was a Cochin, which is a breed with masses of feathers, all the way down to its toes. I loved Buk-Buk, but not her feathery feet, which got muddy in the spring and fall and encrusted with snow and ice during the winter. I haven’t had a cochin since her. Still, when I placed the hatchery order in the spring, I asked for two blue Cochins. (Blue means grey in chicken talk.) I was yearning for blue birds, and liked the idea of the mellow cochin personality.

One of the chicks didn’t survive, but Pearl kept growing and growing. Cochins have layers of downy underfeathers, and more layers of primary feathers, all of which are softer than the average chicken’s. An adult Cochin takes up space. But, size doesn’t determine pecking order, and with her gentle demeanor, Pearl is at the bottom of the pack. That isn’t a big deal in my flock, as it is a peaceful group of girls, but it does mean that Pearl sleeps on a lower rung of the roost. The roosts are ladders, propped up against the wall. Somehow, I installed them at just the wrong angle – the hens above poop onto the backs of the girls below. The other hens, with their tight feathering, were able to shake the messes off, but the manure sank into Pearl’s pillows of down. This past weekend, in the midst of making pies, I picked up Pearl and realized that she had poop all across her back. You can see the discoloration of her feathers in this photo. What you can’t see is the mess underneath. (Yet another reason to handle and inspect your birds!)

Disgusting, and not at all healthy for her. I didn’t have time to give her a full bath. I had pies to bake. Bathing a regular chicken (video here) can take a half hour, but double that for a Cochin. Instead, I hosed Pearl’s back end off in my laundry room sink, then soaped up the offending area with ivory and hosed her off some more. Next she was ready to be blow-dried. She sat on my leg while I blew. And blew. After thirty minutes she was almost dry – good enough to go back outside. Luckily it was a surprisingly warm day for November. If the temperatures had been normal, I’d have been drying her another half hour, and I hadn’t even gotten her whole body wet. (Anyone out there show Cochins? Keeping them in show feathers is a whole other story!)

Just look at those pantaloons. On the left is Pearl all fluffed up and clean. Next to her is Opal, a big Delaware. Opal weighs more than Pearl, but you have to pick them up to know that.

I’ve moved the roosts down so that the angle isn’t so steep. That should take care of the problem.

Pearl still has a manure stain on her back, but she’s clean and I’m sure a lot more comfortable. As long as I was giving her a spa day, I trimmed the feathers on her feet. It’ll be easier for her to get around on icy ground without snow clumping on them. Her dense coat will keep her toasty warm this winter. However, in the summer she has a hard time regulating body temperature and is susceptible to heat stroke. Cochins are gorgeous, fancy birds;  they’re not sensible barnyard chickens and they need extra care. But, in a flock of a dozen, isn’t it nice to have one that looks like this?