Saturday, December 14, 2013

Wood Hens

(Found this "lost posting" from early November....as a snowstorm creeps this way tonight)

The past 2 days have been sunny and about 50 degrees.

The new pullets have been taking the rest of the flock way up into the woods to scratch for bugs and other tasty treasures.

I followed them this afternoon and was a bit surprised to find Mrs Howell climbing trees to eat spiders.





Some of the pullets came down every hour to graze on the grass and then they returned up to the woods.



The older flock members like scratching around all the old stone walls that encircle this farm. Most were built, stone by stone, around 1780.

 These 3 pullets were under the old forsythia bushes by the old cellar hole soaking up the sun.


I found my elusive comet pullets over in the blackberry patch two fields away from the farm.


One of the barred rocks was with them.


Mrs Howell was in the compost pile by the afternoon checking out the 3 frozen chrysanthemum plants.


and the end pieces of some other squash.


As the sun set, the flock returned to the garden to make one last round before heading to the coop for the night.
 In the last of the light I discovered a surviving pansy and a newly shed feather.




The firebush is naked and there are less berries, as the hens pull them off and consume them.

Even though there is less leaves, flowers and plants to admire..... 

there seem to be more eggs to smile about...

Yesterday I found 4 nice fresh eggs in the nest box.


This morning I found 5 more, one of them being BLUE.  Our first.


Later I found a few more and one of them was a MONSTER egg.


Sunshine, spiders and left over Chinese white rice make for lots of eggs!

How are your flocks doing on these wonderful days ?

5 comments:

  1. My flock of fifteen have learned to stay close to home...to many dangers in the surrounding fields...It is cold in Maine today...the temperature has struggled to reach ten degrees...The girls remain tucked in their coop with the heat lamp...Snow is on the horizon...Greetings...

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  2. My sympathy to the poor hen that lay that humongous egg, It looks so out of place next to the normal sized eggs. I am surprised that they hens are giving you so many eggs this time of year. I thought they hardly lay any eggs when the light is so scarce.
    I did not think that chickens would travel so far from home as the one you found 2 fields away. All your hens have such pretty colors & patterns.

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  3. Surprised the PETUNIA has survived this long (even just into Nov.).

    We just have 1 adventurer here, Ernie, an old Barred Rock. But lately she just ventures next door to see what garbage the neighbors have dumped out back.

    The hens are laying well, 11 - 15 eggs/day for 16 hens.

    I bet the big one is a double yolker. My customers tell me that many of the X-large eggs are doubles.

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  4. Boy, would love to have the chickens eat the spiders in my house and yard! I hate spiders. We have lots of small beetles around here, too.

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  5. Chicken stalker! LOL Thank you for sharing with the Clever Chicks Blog Hop! Merry Christmas!

    Kathy Shea Mormino
    The Chicken Chick

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