Vintage Quest Acres

Last summer when we moved onto the farm, we ordered many chickens. 100+ of them. My daughter had always wanted to raise chickens and we got them on her birthday. She was so happy, and she lovingly took care of them from their early beginnings and through the winter. She figured out when they would lay eggs and in joyful anticipation expected a bumper crop around Christmas. When the eggs didn't come, we tried changing their feed, adding lights, checking for mites, etc. But still no eggs. And then the days got warmer and the sunlight got stronger and longer. Lo and behold, nature's plan could not be forced by all the tricks. Our chickens insisted on waiting until spring to start laying! Now we have a bunch of eggs, up to 5 dozen a day. Earlier this week, we started moving the "laying" hens over to the summer pen. Funny thing is that after we moved those that we thought were laying (we plan to "cull" those who are not), the leftover ones laid more eggs than the "laying" hens. In the next couple of days, we will move more hens over after we spend some time watching them lay eggs. (We have to see it to believe it.) During this process, my son got pecked by a rooster. He mistakenly thought that he could tell off a rooster for being aggressive. He got too close and so the rooster pecked him VERY close to his eye. That rooster will soon be on the dinner table. He is the brother of the mean rooster I spoke of in "And So Goes the Mean Rooster."