Eggs, chickens, ahhhh

You know, when we went into the hardware store last year and started this whole journey of raising chickens I had now idea how much I would end up loving it.  

Our total number of adult chickens is 18, with 13 hens and three roosters.  Those God damned roosters.  I feels like no matter how many I butcher I can't get rid of enough of them.  Last week I thought we were down to two - one for each coop, and then our big, brown, puffy bird decided to crow!  Right in front of me!  The nerve!  :-)  When I'm in the mood again I'll have to haul out the butcher knife and prepare a nice chicken dinner.  

Anyway, we have the 13 hens, and if you can believe this, our highest daily egg yield has been ONE DOZEN!  That doesn't even include the 29 baby chicks that aren't producing yet!  We will be in Egg City when they mature.  I think I'll put an ad for farm fresh, cage free eggs on Craig's list.  I have to decide on a price.  If you regularly buy cage free / organic eggs and can share a market price I'd appreciate any ideas.

We currently get brown, tan, white and blue-green eggs.  They all taste equally delicious.  I'm amazed at the quality difference, even from the commercial cage-free variety.  Tough shells and bursting with flavor.  Yummm.

Volume has not been a problem.  I share with my family and my next door neighbor because the neighbor shares his grapefruit.  Now his lemon tree is extending over the wall, so he will be sharing his lemons, even if it isn't his plan.

Thing Three cooks up a few eggs for a snack all the time.  I boil them and chop them in salads and they make great snacks.  Once boiled it is impossible to keep them for 24 hours because they are so darn good.

One reason the egg yield has jumped so high is that I have a flood light and a warming lamp in the second coop for the babies.  I can probably take that out now, but it has dropped to freezing a couple of nights and they seem to like it.  As I understand it, commercial farms keep the lights blazing for 24 hours to keep yields up.  More daylight makes for more production.

The new coop is finally finished.  I ended up doing most of it myself in spite of my kids promising to help.  I did it while they were gone.  It was good to be outside, the weather was crisp and the sun was shining.

I had an accident while doing the coop, however.  I was very, very lucky it wasn't a much worse and tragic one.  I use UV strength plastic cable ties to attach the chicken wire to the pipe horse stall framework.  The batch I bought at Home Depot must have been a little off spec because they were hard to pull tight.  To remedy this I used a pair of pointed pliers.  Not quite needle-nose, but pointed.

I was up on the ladder and attaching the upper sheet of wire to the top rail.  It was a little tricky because gravity was pulling the wire sheet down and I was fighting it trying to tighten the cable tie that was attaching the sheet to the top rail.  I used my left hand to hold the wire sheet high enough, and used my right hand to get the tie ready and pull the tail through the tie's lock with the pliers.  I had to pull pretty fast and hard with the pliers.  It was working very well.  I was about 2/3 around, and I suppose I was getting a little tired.

I was cruising along and with one big tug either the pliers slipped or the tail of the cable tie snapped... and with a great deal of my own strength I plunged the pliers, pointy end first, into my face!!  Ugh!!!!!!!

I was a lucky lady.  I missed my eyeball by about an inch and smacked the pliers into the bone around my eye socket.  I could have lost an eye.  I guess I should consider some safety glasses (nerd alert).

I stopped, muttered "fuck", and pulled my dazed self together.  I moved on - for a couple more ties, until my eye went all foggy.  I realized there was blood dripping down into my eye.  I went inside and was prepared for horror.  Fortunately, it was "only a flesh wound".  I wiped it clean and applied a tiny bandage to the puncture wound.  (I finally found a use for those little square band-aids!)  It was swelling pretty fast so I applied some ice for a few minutes.  Then I went out to finish.

It is healing nicely.  Minimal bruising and swelling, just sore to the touch and a little cut.  Hopefully the cut won't scar.

I'm reminded of the old Saturday Night Live skits with Billy Crystal.  "I hate when that happens!"  

The eggs and the chickens are worth it.  I love going out to let them forage out of the coop and drink a cup of tea and watch.  I love the feeling of finding their eggs.  They have really brought a lot of relaxing entertainment to my life.  I guess I'm easily entertained.  Simple things make me pretty darn happy.  I'm going to go whip up a batch of deviled eggs, a family favorite.