Twiggy has been laying steadily for weeks, and the blue egg girls, Owly and Beatrix, have each, the last two weeks, been contributing eggs to the basket. Nancy Drew has started to lay lay small brown eggs, but I don’t always find them. I fear that she’s reaching around and eating her eggs as she lays them. But that’s another story that I’ll tell when I have all of the facts. Veronica is a Cuckoo Marans, a slow to mature breed. She’s plump and active but shows no interest whatsoever in the nesting boxes.
Misty, like Veronica, has shown no interest in laying, but all of a sudden, in the past few days, she looks so different, that I checked the calendar. She (and all of the Literary Ladies) have just reached 24 weeks of age. That’s egg laying age. Misty is a Blue Andalusian, a breed that lays white eggs. How do you know? Look at the color of her earlobes! Iridescent pearly white.
And her comb! In the past week it’s grown so huge that it’s flopped over. It rivals Twiggy’s for fashion drama.
Misty looks beautiful standing on the stump.
But I think she’d be more beautiful in the nesting boxes.
I expected Misty to end up being a steely blue colour, is she black?. lol I thought that green pumpkin was black also so it could be me.
This time your eyes don’t deceive you. She is as black as an Australorp, which surprises me, too.
To bad you don’t care to keep roosters.
I bet if you kept Mister Grumpy, he and Misty would have made beautiful blue babies.
Grumpy could come visit to make babies…. and Gwendolyn His Pretty bride has also seemed like she has matured immensely in the past two weeks. She has become one of our favorites. I was wondering if Misty was laying yet…. Gwen is one of my oldest Pullets and will probably be the last to lay….
I saw Nancy in the nesting box. It looked like she had laid her egg but then spent a lot of time with her head down before she left the box. I thought she might be eating her eggs.
She’s a very beautiful hen x
Misty sure looks magnificent standing on the stumps. A picture of good health.
Hoping she will start to produce some eggs soon.
I have noticed Misty for some weeks now too. She is gorgeous. The white earlobe really stands out, like a beauty mark. Your lucky Terry, your girls go to the boxes. I don’t think I’m going to be as fortunate. I’m waiting for one to just drop right in front of me in the run. I noticed my barr rock looking in corners in the run. She’s the only one close to laying. My fake eggs in the boxes all have scratches on them where they’ve been pecked. I’m hoping they get that out of their system before the real ones come. Hope all have a good day at Little Pond.
Misty likes to hang out right in front of the hen cam a lot. I sit here and giggle when I see her head pop up. She really is a pretty hen. Some don’t have inviting eyes…but I think hers are beautiful!
Don’t give up on your cuckoo maran. I have one . She began laying at 4 1/2 months, they are small, but the prettiest eggs I have ever seen! Hers are the prettiest dark brown color. A little bit of trivia that I read….. supposedly, cuckoo maran eggs were the only kind James Bond OO7 requested! Ha!
I just read where the proper way to refer to even a single Marans, includes the “s” on the end… they are a Marans, not a Maran! Ian Fleming’s favorite egg was a Marans, so he wrote it into 007, as his favorite, too!
The Black Copper Marans is very rare, if not the rarest chicken in the US. They seem to have the darkest eggs of all?!!!
I always learn something in your blog: Pat D’s information re. James Bond and Ian Fleming’s egg preference is a hoot (or should I say a cluck). I did notice the past few days that Misty was competing with Twiggy for the sexiest headpiece!! Never a dull moment at LPF.
Terry do you think Nancy might have seen Betty eating eggs and learned that way ?
No, Betsy hasn’t taught her. I think that Nancy’s first egg was soft and she ate it and it went from there.
I thought the ear lobe color thing was a myth. I’m going to have to take a serious look at my EEs’ ear lobes.
I had some egg eating this season. I have rollout nest boxes. At first I was using the rollout boxes, but then I’d see a big red head poking through the back of the nestbox trying to check out her egg. So, I cut wood blocks to fill in the back so the eggs would stay where the ladies laid them, as the big red hens seem motherly toward their eggs. But then, one, two, three eggs were clearly pecked and partially eaten, making a mess for me and bringing flies into my coop for the first time ever. I suspected the maturing easter eggers were curiously pecking at the red hens’ eggs, as they would sit across from the nest boxes and watch all morning as the older ladies laid. So, I took out the wooden blocks and let the eggs roll. Now that it seems everyone is laying, I will soon block them up again so the hens can have the satisfaction of sitting on their eggs awhile. Egg eating is messy! I hope the habit is gone.
White lobes: white eggs. Red lobes: all other egg colors.
Darn it then. No blue ears!
My chickens are 1 week younger than yours. I have 2 leghorns they had been laying daily than for 1 week 1 appears to stop laying. Any suggestions?? Also any thoughts on keeping hawks away one was on top of the garage today.
Thanks
It’s likely the hawks are stressing them out and so they’ve stopped laying. Nearby predators will do that. The best thing to keep hawks away is a dog like my Lily who chases them. Hawk netting over the run helps, as does hanging CDs (the sparkling in the sun annoys the hawks.)
And then thier is the beautiful turquiose earlobe of the Silkie, Actually my Blue silkie Chicken-Little (AKA, KUJO) is my only silkie with Turquoise earlobes and a black comb my whiteys have red
Silkies are always the exception to the rule! Odd little chickens.
I hatched eggs several 7 weeks ago that were from my vet . the chicks are half Black Copper Marans and americuna, I am excited to see the colour of the eggs tha oe from them… It is cool to see what genes come out in the individual chicks, like only on has feathered legs like the BCM and somewhere along the line thier must hace been an aracuna becase one of the appears to be rumpless. or the others are pulling the tail feathers or it is a deformity, but i am pretty certain it is a gene that came out in this chick
That sounds like a gorgeous mix. I wish that more mixes were available to backyard keepers. They’re quite popular in England.
What do you do with the cockerels after a hatch? Can’t keep them all.
lol I hatched 4 and I beleive them all to be female, I also hatched 3 welsummers 2 of them are roosters, I am trying to rehome one… If I can’t rehome the oneI have 2 hen houses. so its not the end of the world for me