Blueberry Hill Farm

The Charlotte Tailgate Market, at which our farm participates, cranked back up on April 25th.  It was good to see return customers for our eggs.

The months of January through April have us eating lots of quiches, scrambled eggs, deviled eggs, and hard-boiled eggs fed back to the chickens for extra protein.  I can't seem to convince the girls to take those months off as a much needed vacation, thereby resulting in more eggs than we know what to do with!

May through December end up with us selling every available egg and always have me considering purchasing more chickens to keep up with the demand for true farm fresh, free range eggs.

When I returned home from opening day at the market and shared with the girls that folks were lined up at our booth for their eggs, the hens squawked their excitement and vowed to do their part to try and keep up with demand.

They are hard working girls and deserve the extra treats I manage to throw their way.  Even Clancy, the Rhode Island Red rooster, who, by the way, is my favorite, does his part by working hard to protect his girls with a watchful eye, and by scratching up as many bugs as he can share with them.

If we all had the work ethic and pleasant personalities of laying hens, this world would be a much better place!

The blue coop houses the pullets and Dandy, the Americauna rooster.  The news from the blue coop is, that during April and May the pullets began laying eggs -- always a much anticipated event.

Some people are confused as to the term "pullet" and wonder what breed of chicken it is.  For those of you who may not know, a pullet is a young hen less than a year old who has just begun to lay.  Kind of like a human teenager.

The two breeds of pullets that roost in the blue coop are Australorps and Black Sex Links. Both are large breed birds that will lay large eggs in a few months.  For the time being, their eggs are rather small.

I usually include a couple of pullet eggs in each carton and compensate for the smaller size by including a couple of jumbo eggs.  The new girls always appreciate being included and feel their efforts are more worthwhile when their eggs are as valued as the older, more seasoned layers.  After all, everybody's got to start somewhere!

 Pullet eggs are as tasty and nutritious as larger eggs.  And, just so you'll know, it takes the same amount of ingredients to produce a small egg as it does to produce a large one.

In the ebb and flow of "hendom" and the egg laying that goes along with it, there are always times when some rest, some molt, and some are just starting out.  Those are the realities of real farming and go along with the "lay of the land."