free-range coonhound

My dog Slick joined the young roosters for breadcrumbs on the lawn. Neither party seemed too concerned.

daylight hours

The hens are really ramping up their egg production now that the days are longer. Today, there was a huge egg! Someone was working hard on this one for sure. Usually an egg this large has twin yolks.

















Here are the girls getting some sun. The white hen in the upper right corner is Big Mama and she is 5 years old! I will dedicate a blog entry to her soon. She is quite a chicken.




Also, the turkey hens have begun to lay! The center egg is from a maiden Red Bourben Hen. It is only the size of the chicken eggs it is flanked by because the hens are so young and this is their first lay.

But, soon enough the eggs will reach full size and be quite large. We end up eating the first month of eggs because fertility is very low. Once the eggs are a decent size and the turkeys are mating successfully, I will hatch some in an incubator. Some I will sell as fertile eggs to other folks who want to hatch their own. And then finally in late May I will let the hens go 'broody' and hatch their own clutch. Last year, my hen Gretta hatched a clutch of Red Bourben poults all by herself. She let Pearl, our semi-blind turkey, help her raise them.

This is my Red Bourben tom 'Erik the Red' trying to impress one of his ladies.