Chickens, and things related

[Tororider]

If you have the refrigerator room I would think it prudent to keep them cold since it slows bacteria formation, If the grocery store had two sections for displaying their eggs, one refrigerated, and one at store ambient temperature I know which pile most folks would be picking them up from. Am I missing something here are eggs like aging cheese or something?

No, obviously put them in the fridge, they will stay for 4+ weeks that way. I am just saying if you find an egg and don't know how old it is you can float it to see if it is good. Some people say leaving eggs out on the counter if you plan on baking makes them taste better in the baked item. But they CAN be kept out for around a week without problem, not saying they SHOULD.

Also, don't clean the eggs until right before use. They have what I think is called bloom on them that keeps bacteria and stuff from getting into the eggs and making them go bad earlier.

 

[bmac]

2 more eggs today, one in the nest box, one on the floor.

As far as shelf life and storage, my wife found this report. Interesting.

Can You Really Store Fresh Eggs A Year Or more Without Refrigerator?

 

[Tororider]

I continue to get two eggs a day. Makes me realize I need to eat more eggs, hehe.

 

[bmac]

Well, I guess one of our girls decided that she didn't like the egg-laying thing. The past 2 days, we've only gotten 1 egg/day. So, with only 6 little eggs, we're going to have to wait awhile before its family omelet time.

I had read that the comparison of bantam eggs to regular eggs was about 3:2. After seeing them in person, it looks more like 2:1 to me. Of course, we'll know for sure when we crack them open. With 16 hens, once they all get on board, we should be good with eggs.

 

[Tororider]

I have another 6 hatched in the basement 3 aracauna and 3 salmon faverolle, hopefully I will get a couple more faverolles and some buff orps. This is getting crazy.

 

[Tororider]

Well a total of 11 hatched, out of the 13 fertile eggs. So the 4 that I had left from my first hatch(was that 6-7 weeks ago already) went out to my brother in laws and are currently living comfortably in the chicken tractor there. It was pretty funny watching them see grass for the first time, but they must have figured it out quickly because when I checked on them today, two days later, all the grass was gone.

That leaves me with the 9 three week old chicks and the 11 week old chicks. I think I have 7 buff orps, 6 salmon faverolles, 6 araucaunas, and 1 lonely Rhode Island Red. I am hoping to have some decent breeding groups with the bo, sf, and ara, so we will see.

I think my third hen has starting laying as I had three eggs one day and one was outside the nest box and smaller. Getting two a day every day now and they are what I would call large size, perfect eating. I have starting handing them out to neighbors and results have been very positive.

 

[dooleysm]

Last night when I got home from work my wife told me to go look in the chicken coop. One of my chickens (my only turken) was laying on its back. I don't know what was wrong with it, but it wasn't good. It almost seemed paralyzed or something. She said it had been like that for several hours. I picked it up and looked it over, it didn't seem like it had been attacked by anything. Not wanting to spend money to have it looked at by a vet, I dispatched it and disposed of it. I didn't feel like eating a mysteriously diseased chicken was the best thing to do.

A couple evenings ago I was in the barn feeding the dogs. I usually let my pregnant female out to get a little exercise and get some extra food. While she was in the barn eating I went out to refill the chickens' feeder. I heard a big ruckus in the barn and headed back in. I found my dog with a big mouth full of feathers and a fearful chicken running around squawking. I rounded up the dog and put her away and chased the chicken back into the pen. Since then it hasn't seemed right. It's mostly been hanging out in the coop while the other chickens roam around. I checked on it last night and it was sitting on the ground while the other chickens were roosting. When I went out to open their pen this morning it was still dark, but I think that chicken was dead too. I didn't have time to deal with it this morning, so I'll check it out when I get home.

 

[Tororider]

Bummer about the chickens. It sounds like you are going to have to teach the dog that the chickens are off limits. From what I have heard chickens can fend for themselves with cats but dogs are just too powerful. Could the turken just have not been drinking and gotten dehydrated? It has been crazy hot here and the chicks and hens have been going through a ton of water. Just a thought, bot that you weren't providing enough, but that it somehow wasn't drinking enough and spiraled down from there.

 

[dooleysm]

Well, this was late in the evening and the chicken must have snuck in the barn earlier and stayed there instead of going back into the coop. The barn is normally closed up and new enough that there aren't any places for a chicken-sized animal to sneak in. I don't expect the dogs to stay away from the chickens, I expect the chickens to stay away from the dogs. They are penned up behind the barn, with their kennels inside the barn. They can come and go between the inside of the barn and the outside. In any case, I'm not heartbroken over it, I've got plenty of chickens.

I don't think this particular chicken was 'right' anyway. About a week ago I noticed it had one eye constantly closed. It kept walking around with its good eye looking down. The eye opened up a few days ago, but the chicken was still not quite all there. It was kind of slow and just wasn't acting quite right. Maybe that's why it ended up 'lost' in the barn in the first place.

I really don't know what happened with the turken. They have plenty of water available at all times in the coop. The waterer has gone dry a time or two, but not lately while it's been real hot. As long as it's not some kind of disease that the other chickens are going to catch, I'm not really concerned about it. If it had to happen to any of the chickens though, I'm just as happy that it happened to that ugly looking thing.

 

[Tororider]

Yeah, turkens have never made any sense to me. Ugly looking things.