Born on the 10th March 2011, our seven chickens arrived to our home in the suburbs at approx eight weeks of age. Daniel from New Leaf Nursery & Landscapes told me, when we bought our chickens, that they usually lay between twenty and twenty four weeks of age. We have been supplying fresh water, and feed, first starter, then grower and now layer, feed mixes. They are on an Organic diet, including kitchen scraps and some fresh greens & weeds from the garden. I planted a crop of Green Manure in one of my four vegetable plots to enrich the soil. Under my supervision (so they don't eat the crops in the rest of the garden) the chickens have had great delight free ranging in the Green Manure this past week!
Our "Isa Browns" enjoying the fresh greens.
"Mabel, the Black Australorp" gets her share too!
Nothing is wasted at our place, a family of five, with a dog, seven chickens and two compost bins, a lot of feeding and recycling goes on and on!
Its been three months that we have cared for our chickens and waited, the chickens have grown to double their size and I suppose now we call them hens! We had sort of lost count of the weeks going by and family, friends and neighbours were all beginning to ask are those chickens laying any eggs for you yet?
In the midst of a hectic week last week, the last thing on my mind really was are the chickens laying eggs? But obviously the chickens were oblivious to my cares and had not lost track of time. Last Thursday morning the chickens were in fact twenty weeks old and the very next morning they began to lay!
Molly went out for her early morning chore of letting the chickens out of their coop and giving them their morning scratch mix! I was busily preparing for a janeCOOKS Cooking Class I had on that day. When rather suddenly with great noise and excitement Molly ran in the back door to share the news "the chickens have laid some eggs!" Out we all ran and not only had they laid, but they had even laid in the layer boxes we had put in the coop...such Clever chickens!
Plus to our further excitement one of the eggs was still warm, which was a bizarre thought really!!! Our seven chickens had produced six eggs that day, the following morning another one egg followed and later that afternoon we found two more!
The eggs varied in size, but we thought it was a pretty fine effort for beginners!
The kids enjoyed boiled eggs with toast dippers for breakfast in the Saturday morning sunshine.
I related the news of the arrival of our first eggs and the delicious breakfast that followed, to my darling mother that afternoon. She herself grew up on a farm and enjoyed fresh eggs daily. She assures me that now my kids have tasted fresh eggs, they will never eat store bought eggs again!
If our clever chickens keep laying eggs with such enthusiasm and quantity, we may well have fresh eggs for sale at the front gate!
New Leaf Nursery and Landscapes
224 Powderworks Road, Ingleside NSW 2101
Daniel Yakich
Ph: (02) 9913 3709
M: 0414 696 930
info@newleafnursery.com.au
1 comment:
Let me be the first to congratulate your chooks on their entry into womanhood. Isn't it interesting that they were all in sync to lay their first egg on the same day. Kind of like the girls at the office :D
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