Filed under: December 2012 | Tags: animals, christmas baking, egg farms, egg size
Hens enjoying their freedom
December 2, 2012
Our hens are starting to molt. It is the time between egg cycles. They lose feathers and get new ones. They quit laying eggs. They just lounge about taking a free ride.
I guess I shouldn’t complain, they have given us enough eggs to keep the family in eggs and even sell a few dozen. The year started out with nine hens. Now we are down to six. Once the molt is over, they should be able to keep us in eggs again, at least for the winter.
Big egg farms sell or kill the hens once they get to this first molt. They eat and don’t lay eggs for a while. When they do start producing again, the number of eggs for the year will drop. The egg size however, gets bigger. They lay some whoppers!
The hens should be back into production pretty soon. Hopefully, it will be soon enough to help out with the Christmas baking 😮
I am sure that as they go through the molt period, they need a few extra nutrients. I let them find those nutrients for themselves. They scratch and pick at the ground finding whatever it is they need. They also supplement their diet with this free ranging, eating less purchased feed.
Our hens have the run of a two and a half-acre field, but when turned out in the farm-yard, they act as if they have never been out. They run crazy from here to there finding morsels to fight over. I like to watch them enjoying their freedom. The gestures they make, they extra food they consume, makes me a “freedom lover” too 😮
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