Feathered Friend Friday: Pretty Pullet Eggs

Our spring chicks are over five months old now, and nearly all of them have begun laying. We've raised several flocks of chicks, but I always get so excited when I first discover their miniature eggs in the nesting boxes. Female chickens are called "pullets" until they reach one year of age, then they are known as hens. When pullets first begin to lay, around five or six months of age, their eggs are about half the size of eggs laid by older hens. These tiny practice eggs are known as "pullet eggs" and are just the cutest little things!

Out of all our spring chicks, I was most excited to see our Welsummer's eggs, since I'd heard they would be a lovely dark brown color. I have to say, Summer didn't disappoint! Her eggs are a dark reddish brown color with adorable little speckles all over.

Summer is our first Welsummer chick, and has made me fall in love with the breed. Their eggs are gorgeous, but they are also stunning girls with such beautiful feathers.

I am kind of becoming obsessed with having lots of different colored eggs from our flock, so in the future I hope to add some Ameraucanas (they lay blue eggs) and some black copper marans (they lay the darkest chocolate-brown eggs of any breed). I think a carton of eggs with all different colors is just about the prettiest thing in the world!

Do you have any chickens that lay unusually colored eggs?

~Tammy

Shared with From the Farm Blog Hop, Down Home Blog Hop  

Happy Trails

Last summer we got our property logged, so the woods are a big mess right now. Before the logging, we made several different trails through our 20 acres of woods and loved to take walks together each evening. Logging ruined our trails, and we were pretty depressed about that and avoided the woods altogether for a while. It was just too painful to see our property in shambles. But recently we decided to begin work on constructing new trails, and I'm happy to say that we just finished up one trail!

I say we loosely, because David did all the work, I was just along for moral support. Last night he was with his band at their first parade of the season (they won 1st place, woohoo!) so he didn't make it home until after dark. I decided to walk the trail after dinner to unwind and get a little exercise. Since David wasn't home to walk it with me, my faithful companion Sylvester joined in for the hike.

I decided to take my time during this walk and focus on my surroundings. I noticed a few things I hadn't seen before. Funny how that happens, when we take the time to slow down and be present in the moment.

When was the last time you allowed yourself to slow down and just live in the moment?

~Tammy

PS - Don't forget to visit Daisy, Staci and Amber today for their posts in the Homemade Living series. Next week I will share my post along with Mary and Jackie.

Year In Review

Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of this little blog of ours (you can see our very first ever post here), so as we did last year this time, we thought it would be fun to look back on the past year and see what all we've accomplished. Sometimes it seems like we aren't moving fast enough toward our goals, but seeing a list of all we've achieved in the last year is very encouraging and keeps us excited to continue our journey to self-sufficiency. Here's what we've been up to this past year.

1) Expanded our flock of guineas when one of our hens went broody and hatched out her own keets.

2) Got our first big snow since moving to the country and learned about being prepared for winter storms.

3) Tried our hand at making maple syrup (part 1 and part 2) from our own maple trees.

4) Contributed to our first e-book, Farm to Table through the Year.

5) Developed an easy (and beautiful!) method for drying herbs from our garden.

6) Delved into the world of beekeeping when we brought home our first nuc colony.

7) Added to our flock with five new pullets.

8) Witnessed the magic firsthand of letting a broody hen hatch out her own chicks.

9) Rescued two tiny kittens (Gizmo and Emma) who just appeared in our chicken coop one day.

10) Successfully transplanted fig trees from my grandma's garden and harvested our first figs.

11) Had great luck with planting cucumbers for the first time.

12) Opened an Etsy shop to sell prints of photos taken on our homestead.

13) Grew sunflowers for the first time.

14) Built our own reclaimed wood farmhouse table.

15) Tried a new heirloom variety of tomatoes with great success.

We're really proud of all we've learned this past year and can't wait to see where the next year takes us. We hope you'll continue to follow along in our journey!

~Tammy and David

Feathered Friend Friday: Rough Roosters

Welcome to our "Feathered Friend Friday" series. Each Friday I write a post with interesting facts, photos, or funny stories about our chickens and guineas. If you need to catch up, you'll find all the Feathered Friend Friday posts here.      

If you've ever seen a rooster mate with a hen, you know they can be pretty rough if their romantic advances are rejected. At first, when young female chickens are just coming into their sexual maturity, they will instinctively squat if approached by a rooster to allow him easier access to do his thing. (PS - they will also squat if you pat them on the back, which is a great way to tell if they are getting close to laying their first eggs!) But as they get older and have been around the block a time or two, hens usually don't seem so keen on the special attention and try to outrun the roosters if they can. Sometimes roosters have their favorite girls, and that is the case with our head rooster, Cam, who has taken a liking to poor Isis.

She is an Easter Egger and is a little weird anyway, but she always freaks out when Cam gets near her and tries to run away. Maybe he likes the game, I don't know, but he has to get rough with her to have his way. He will bite her neck and hold her down to the ground while he mates with her. If it sounds bad, it definitely is, but at least it only takes a few seconds. But since Cam has an affinity for biting her neck to make her comply, she is becoming quite bare. Her remaining neck feathers have sort of curled up, so she is looking like a hot mess right now.

Isis: "It doesn't look that bad, does it, Jobin?" Jobin: "Uhhh, no comment."

She gives me a perfect green egg every couple days, so Isis holds a special place in my heart. She is pretty flighty and isn't one for cuddling, but there is something so endearing in her eccentricity. I just hope her feathers will grow back soon and Cam will give her a little break!

Do you have any scraggly looking chickens in your flock?

~Tammy