Monthly Archives: July 2012

Two-toned Egg

Look at what I found in the nesting box. A two-toned egg. It would fit right into a mid-century modern decorating theme, wouldn’t it? I have the urge to go paint a piece of furniture to match it right now.

Someone snuck into the photo shoot. A lady bug! There are two hundred varieties of lady bugs in North America. I have no idea which this one is, but it sure is cute.

I don’t know which hen laid that fancy egg, but I think that I know why. Eggs go through something of an assembly line as they’re being formed. First the yolk is released from the ovary, then the whites and membranes are laid on, and lastly the shell. All the while the egg is moving through the reproductive tract. As the shell is forming, pigment is sprayed on. If the conveyor belt stops at the point where the egg gets it’s color, then that banded effect happens. This egg was laid the day after the chicken keeping workshop. I think that a hen that was about to lay an egg was distracted from her job while the flock had a runaround in the gardens, and were held by the participants. Sometimes when a hen’s schedule is disrupted, or she’s stressed, it will take an extra day to lay that egg. In this case the egg got a special paint job in the process. In all of my years of chicken keeping, I’ve never found such a perfectly two-toned egg. I’ll be blowing it out with this tool and saving it.

For more about pigmentation in eggs, see this post.

Have  you found any decorator eggs lately?

In Bloom Now

Great Spangled Fritillary on Eastern Painted Coneflower

Great Spangled Fritillary on Eastern Painted Coneflower

Coneflower

Coneflower

Stokesia Purple Parasol

Stokesia Purple Parasol

Blue Clips Bellflower

Blue Clips Bellflower

Hydrangea

Hydrangea

Endless Summer Hydrangea

Endless Summer Hydrangea

Butterfly Bush

Butterfly Bush

Chicken Tote Giveaway!

Feeding chickens is so easy. You go to the local feed store and purchase a 50 pound bag of laying hen feed. You put the pellets into a hanging galvanized container which the chickens peck at throughout the day. It’s good for your hens to get greens, too, but they’ll stay quite healthy when the bulk of their diet is from those tidy pellets.

It hasn’t always been like this. In the 19th century you couldn’t purchase bags of complete rations. My favorite chicken manual is a charming little book titled The Biggle Book of Poultry. It first came out in 1895 and has this to say about chicken feed: “On every egg farm there should be a large boiler or steam cooker for cooking vegetables and making compounds of meat, ground grain and vegetables.” That makes me appreciate being able to buy a bag of pellets at the Agway!

By the 1920s grain mills were marketing bags of chicken feed.

It wasn’t hard to convince the small flock owner of the convenience of this product. By the Depression, competition for customers was fierce and money was tight. Cloth sacks were printed with patterns that the frugal homemaker turned into aprons, dresses and curtains.

But, today’s feed bags are made out of either paper, which gets thrown out, or plastic which can not go into the recycling bin (at least not here, it’s a type of plastic that my center doesn’t take.) But, the graphics on the bags are vivid, and the material is sturdy and waterproof and yet flexible. I loathe to throw them out. So, I turn the feed bags into tote bags. Some I sell at the local farmers market. One I am giving away here!

Note the grommets to strengthen the straps.

To enter, simply tell me here what you would put in the bag. You can enter a second time on FaceBook – simply click “like” on this post in FB. You can enter a THIRD time by forwarding the post to your FB friends. If you’re not a FaceBook friend, do become one! I post photos there that you don’t see at HenCam. I’ve got a busy week – it’s Brimfield again, and I’ll be looking for more finds to post on The Vintage Hen – so I’ll let this contest run through Friday, July 13. The contest will close at 9 PM EDT. I value my international friends, so, yes, I’ll ship this to anywhere in the world! Good-luck!

Up-date- this contest is closed and was won by Stephanie in AZ.

The Workshop

On Saturday, the weather prediction was for a stifling hot day, but although it was humid, it was cloudy and the temperature didn’t rise above 90 degrees F. Perhaps it was this moderate weather that put all of the Backyard Chicken Keeping Workshop participants in a good mood. Or maybe it was the relaxing meandering around the gardens before we got started.

In any event, they seemed a content group while on the porch, listening to what I had to say about chicken keeping. Then again, maybe it was the iced tea and cookies.

After the lecture, I took the group out to the barns to see firsthand how I feed, water and care for the hens. The goats don’t understand why they’re not part of the class, and do their best to distract everyone, even head-butting to get attention.

The hens were let out to free-range so everyone could see how destructive helpful they are in the gardens. Next comes the favorite part of the class – I call the  hens back. They come running. And then whoever wants to, can hold a chicken.

The next workshop here is on Saturday, August 4 at 1 pm. Sign-up here (scroll down for the listing.)