We hope this post finds you all safe and healthy! We are truly grateful for your support of our farm business. Supporting local and getting to see our community come together has been a blessing!
Now onto the egg hunt…. we have over 20 laying hens, close to 30 actually. All winter long they produced more eggs than we could eat and sell. About 6 weeks ago we started noticing some of them were broken when we’d go collect from the coup. Then we moved them to their new summer home and locked them inside for a few days to get them used to it. Well that must have upset the girls as they started pecking pretty much all of their eggs and eating them. That was frustrating. We started supplementing with calcium, got them a cabbage to peck at, and made sure the kids checked for freshly laid eggs every couple hours (after all this is all part of their home schooling experience as their public school has closed doors for the year). We moved their summer home to the field out by our pumpkin patch and let them out to free range after a few days. They quickly were much happier, exploring new land, scratching new leaves and able to eat natures bugs once again. They stopped pecking their eggs and life seemed to be turning around in the hen house!
Only problem is we are only collecting between 10-12 eggs per day (and 4 of them are from the barn where 4 of the hens decided they would come back to their old stompin’ grounds). Now we understand we take a few chances by letting our girls free range, but we truly believe they are happier and healthier (and let’s face it eat less feed) when they can explore the land. They are safe from predators at night as once they roost we go out and close them inside their new summer home (which is a chicken coop built on the bed of an old wagon). So where are the rest of these eggs you ask? Well chickens like to lay them in a ‘safe’ spot, we assume this is in some brush/woods just on the edge of the field where their summer home is parked. We’ve looked hours in and around the brush, in the fields and in the pumpkin patch. We cannot find them, and we’re talking at least 12 more eggs a day. Best we can guess is they have a very large pile of them, very well hidden from their humans!
There is the possibility that some other animal is feasting on them. But honestly I feel like we are living an everyday Easter Egg hunt, and the chickens are winning. Hours, I mean hours we’ve spent scouring for these things. Offered the kids actual money if they find them…and not a trace so far. I know someday, when we least expect it we will find the stash. Until then, please be patient when we run out of our delicious farm fresh eggs, we are still looking for them!