Eggs Up

I've mentioned before about getting chickens.  Now the fun has begun.  Our girls started laying while we were on vacation (of course!).  Thankfully we had a house sitter who checked on them and pulled the eggs.  We have 3 of our 6 laying eggs now and the other 3 should be laying soon.

We got our chicks at "Chick Days" in February at Tractor Supply.  We paid the extra $1 to ensure they were female because we didn't want a rooster.  They were super easy to raise and are pretty low maintenance.  

 Our girls are red sexlinks.  They are supposed to be good producers and tame.  I would say they are definitely a mild mannered chicken.  We planned to name them after flowers but are just now being able to tell them apart.  Like the one on the left has a white neck and one is completely solid.

We chose not to free range ours because of too many predators - 3 of the canine variety in the backyard, foxes, hawks, etc.  They have a pretty large area to roam in and they are free to go back and forth between their pen and their house.  This is less work for us too so we don't have to put them up at night.

 I caught this girl in her nest when I went out to feed them one morning.  They seem to be laying between 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning.  Since I am going back to work, checking for eggs will become an afternoon routine.  It's one of the highlights of my day - simple pleasures.

 A perfect brown egg for the picking!

 We are all excited about our fresh eggs!!

We are slowly getting rid of the store eggs and switching to backyard eggs.  Since I took this picture last week we are done with the store bought and are trying get a steady supply of eggs to meet our needs so we don't have to buy any.  We eat a lot of eggs in our house so we need all 6 to start producing to keep up with the demand.  I'll get back to you in a few weeks with a report of how they are doing!