The Mystery of the Thin Shelled Egg has been solved by Nancy Drew, herself!

Throughout September and October, Nancy Drew laid only a couple of eggs a week, and those were thin-shelled and easily broken (and then eaten by Betsy Ross, the pesky little bantam White Leghorn.)

What caused her eggs to be so fragile? The flock’s diet is excellent, and the other hens are laying sturdy eggs, so food wasn’t the culprit. Sometime disease can cause thin eggs, but then the eggs will be wrinkly or misshapen, and Nancy’s eggs were smooth, so that lead was a dead end. Sometimes hens are genetically predisposed to laying poor quality eggs, but some of Nancy’s were fine. So, what was to blame?

Nancy Drew pondered the mystery. She sat in her nesting box and thought. She sat and thought some more. And it was that very sitting and thinking that solved the problem! It takes more than 25 hours from the time that a yolk is released from the ovary until an egg is formed and released out of the uterus. Twenty of those hours are spent in the shell gland. At the end of the process, the hen needs to sit quietly while the shell finishes being constructed. A chicken that is agitated and jumps in and out of the box, or a hen that never settles into the box, will lay fragile eggs. Nancy Drew was one of those hens. She didn’t give her egg-making apparatus enough time.

But, Nancy has learned patience and she has solved the case of her own thin-shelled eggs. She’s now laying four eggs a week, and they’re all perfect.

You might have noticed a change in the bedding in the Little Barn. I am trying out a brand new type of chicken coop bedding. It’s a combination of chopped straw, chopped hay and an odor and moisture absorbing material. A farm in northern Maine has come up with this product, which, if it’s successful, will help the environment and economy up there, as well as make your coop nicer. I’ll fill you in on all of the details once the trial is over. For now, I can tell you that the barn smells like a barn should – fragrant like a field in the summer – and it’s dry.

Phoebe approves.

Pearl, my beautiful splash Cochin, usually looks like a feather duster that would have been used in a Victorian mansion.

Cochins are fluffy because they have many more soft feathers than other breeds. Also, they lack hard, shiny outer feathers. But, each year, just like all other chickens, Cochins drop their thousands of feathers and grow in new ones. This should happen just once. But, for some reason, Pearl went through an early, partial molt in July. I wasn’t surprised, because the worst layers molt first, and Pearl rarely lays. After the molt, she went broody for weeks. Then, mid-October she roused herself from her broody stupor and went into a second molt.

Pearl has so many feathers that at first, you might not notice that she is molting. From a distance, Pearl appears to be as lovely as ever.

But, look closely, and you’ll see that her coat appears looser. New feathers are emerging on the wings. And her bottom looks like this. (It’s obvious when the wind is blowing!) No wonder normally friendly hens don’t want to be picked up during the molt. Would you want to be handled with quills sticking out of your bottom?

Cochins have feathered feet, and even those feathers fall out and new ones grow in. Looking at her legs, I became worried, as the scales are sticking out and not smooth like they should be. Was this scaly leg mite?

No, it was just the new feather shafts pushing their way out. It does look uncomfortable, doesn’t it?

A few more weeks and Pearl will be fully dressed again. Have patience, Pearl!

PS Because I know you’ll ask – I don’t do much different for my molting hens. They appreciate dust baths, so I make sure that they free-range and that their dust bathing bin in the coop is full and clean. I’m careful not to feed bread and pasta as treats, but do toss them a handful of my dog’s expensive fish kibble every few days, because the chickens need quality protein in order to regenerate their feathers. (But, overdoing the protein can cause problems, so I use restraint.) I recently got some chopped alfalfa, which is very good for them. Older hens can have a bit more trouble getting through the molt, so the ancient chickens in the Little Barn are getting a handful of shelled sunflower seeds (not much, a tablespoon per bird!) per day. But, really, all that they need is time and patience.

Even with daylight savings time, mornings have been dark, and very cold. We’ve turned off the outside water. A line of frost outlines each leaf in the yard. There’s been ice in the outside chicken waterers. One morning it was 22 degrees F. I pulled the last of the green bean plants and fed them to the animals. Brown leaves are piling up in the corners of my vegetable garden. With some relief, I thought that I was done with the garden for the season. But the other day I had a sudden thought. Did I pull the carrots? I had forgotten all about them!

This has happened before. Last time I didn’t remember until after the ground had frozen solid. I had to wait for a thaw to pry them up, by which time the roots had turned to mush. But this time look at what I found underground!

Carrots harvested after the first frost are especially sweet. They’re so good we’ve been eating them raw, but I’ll cook them up, too. Some I’ll dress with honey and ginger. How do you cook your carrots?

The goats don’t need any fancy preparations. They got the tops (and a few of the carrots too small to bother with). There was much delighted munching, crunching and burping.

Now the gardening season is really, truly over.

Goats love to climb. They like to doze on up-high platforms. Pip has his bench, but Caper has been stuck with a low-lying rock. (Pip does not share.) My friend, Lauren Scheuer, (author of the charming Once Upon A Flock) lives for an excuse to wield a power tool. I lured her here with 2-inch screws and hot coffee. She brought her famous dog, Marky.

I had a pallet and some logs. Lauren travels with spare boards. She set to work.

The goats had to watch from the pasture. Goats and power tools are something that you never, ever want to mix.

In no time at all, Lauren had constructed a goat platform. The goats checked it out.

Different ways to get on and off it were explored.

The goats approved.

It’s big enough that I can sit with them, which at first I thought would be a sweet thing. However, Pip had a distant memory of being a little baby goat and sitting on my lap. Just after this photo was taken, he settled all hundred pounds down on me. I told Pip that was not a good idea!

The platform is sited right behind the stumps. It’ll be interesting to see which goat stakes a claim to it. My guess is Pip. He wants everything. What will Caper do? Stay tuned!