So after I had been neglectful on collecting the eggs the other week, and thus opened an egg with a blood spot from under my broody hen, I have been extra diligent in collecting them in a timely fashion.
Now it is high spring, egg laying is at its height, as it should be for the better part of the summer (barring uncomfortable heat waves, or unforeseen disasters).
So, Monday, I collected four eggs. Not too bad and it seems like that was the number I had been getting of late. Most of my hens are over four years old, and I figure eight hens that are past their prime are doing well laying about four eggs per day. Tuesday, I got eight.
Eight full eggs from eight laying hens. Coq Au, as you might expect, doesn't lay very many eggs at all. In fact, if I tally the entire number, he remains at zero.
Then Wednesday ... zero eggs. Thursday and Friday seemed back on track at five eggs each day.
I think they're doing quite well, honestly. But I am concerned that after a long and troubled year, followed by a long and cold winter, their consistency has been off. Oh how I wish Matilda was still with us! She was the best union rep the flock had and certainly could've sorted out the weirdness, or at least explained to me. After all of this time, they still haven't told me who the new Union liaison is and with a hen having gone broody in the middle of February and the egg count up and down, I fear they have chosen NO ONE.
Maybe my older biddies age become too set in their ways to listen to one above them. Maybe they just can't come to a consensus. I tried talking to Lily about it. She's semisweet that I know she'd tell me, but being one of the 'newer' girls, she provided little insight and stared lovingly, if blankly, until I couldn't help but distribute a few dried crickets.
I strode up to Hermione (the alpha female) looking for answer.
"Hermione, we're getting plenty of eggs and all, but what's the deal? Eight in one day, zero the next? Who's running production?"
She flicked away the last ash of her Marlboro, adjusted the curlers in her comb a bit and replied with a directed sneer: "What's to you, bub? Yer getting' yer eggs, so we don't want to hear any gripes. You get me, daddio?"
With that, she strutted off and left me wondering where she was getting that kind of talk from.
I wonder if Porky Pig had these kind of troubles when he was managing 'Flockheed'.
Seems everything I learned from old Warner Brothers' cartoons was a little off.
Now it is high spring, egg laying is at its height, as it should be for the better part of the summer (barring uncomfortable heat waves, or unforeseen disasters).
So, Monday, I collected four eggs. Not too bad and it seems like that was the number I had been getting of late. Most of my hens are over four years old, and I figure eight hens that are past their prime are doing well laying about four eggs per day. Tuesday, I got eight.
Eight full eggs from eight laying hens. Coq Au, as you might expect, doesn't lay very many eggs at all. In fact, if I tally the entire number, he remains at zero.
Then Wednesday ... zero eggs. Thursday and Friday seemed back on track at five eggs each day.
I think they're doing quite well, honestly. But I am concerned that after a long and troubled year, followed by a long and cold winter, their consistency has been off. Oh how I wish Matilda was still with us! She was the best union rep the flock had and certainly could've sorted out the weirdness, or at least explained to me. After all of this time, they still haven't told me who the new Union liaison is and with a hen having gone broody in the middle of February and the egg count up and down, I fear they have chosen NO ONE.
Maybe my older biddies age become too set in their ways to listen to one above them. Maybe they just can't come to a consensus. I tried talking to Lily about it. She's semisweet that I know she'd tell me, but being one of the 'newer' girls, she provided little insight and stared lovingly, if blankly, until I couldn't help but distribute a few dried crickets.
I strode up to Hermione (the alpha female) looking for answer.
"Hermione, we're getting plenty of eggs and all, but what's the deal? Eight in one day, zero the next? Who's running production?"
She flicked away the last ash of her Marlboro, adjusted the curlers in her comb a bit and replied with a directed sneer: "What's to you, bub? Yer getting' yer eggs, so we don't want to hear any gripes. You get me, daddio?"
With that, she strutted off and left me wondering where she was getting that kind of talk from.
I wonder if Porky Pig had these kind of troubles when he was managing 'Flockheed'.
Seems everything I learned from old Warner Brothers' cartoons was a little off.
Oh well ... if I didn't learn the finer points of egg production, I did learn a lot of cool old music!
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