Let’s be honest. You don’t need to follow this blog very long to realize that, on this sixty (plus or minus) animal, 100 acre ranch, the chickens basically rule the roost.
They free-range.
They steal grain from the llamas and horses. They hijack hay feeders to use as nesting boxes.
Each one has her own little personality and habits. Continue reading “Farm Fresh or Not: The Chickens Behind the Eggs”
Out here on the ranch, we are at the peak of our egg season. Most of my fully grown hens lay an egg a day during the summer, which equals 5 to 6 eggs per day. In the fall, my little ones will start laying as well.
In the winter, they lay far fewer eggs. We have chosen not to artificially light our coop, which means our girls take their natural “break,” molting and slowing down their egg production for the season.
Next summer, I will be swimming in eggs. With a dozen chickens joining our flock this year, hopefully all hens, I will be getting well over a dozen eggs a day.
Many of you know that eggs are at a premium right now, with the avian flu taking out millions of commercial birds at a time. Additionally, California is finally legislating more humane conditions for laying hens; if you ask me, that’s a step in the right direction, but it will also require an increase in egg prices. (God willing, other states will follow suit.)
All of this is just to say that, for the first in any sort of recent history, commercial egg prices are starting to creep up close to organic prices.
Almost Farmgirl 