Our Layer Hens, Part 3

As promised, more chicken pictures!

Chickens on a roost. Like chicken-on-a-stick at the state fair, but without the deep fat frying.

A Partridge Cochin with her head tucked beneath her wing. A big round ball of feathers, and such pretty coloring!

A Buff Orpington roo all puffed out in the cold. He’s got some frostbite on his comb and wattle. That’s the disadvantage of breeds with larger combs and wattles, but he’s one of those holdouts that refuses to roost inside the coop.

Chickens in the corncrib. I tend to pick breeds based on prettiness, not productivity. That’s the whole reason I got layers in the first place – because they look pretty milling about the farm. The fact they lay eggs is just gravy, and if they lay enough extra that I can sell some is just gravy on gravy. Matt likes how they help clean up spilled hog and cattle feed, though I think the ducks are more adept at that.

If I were to get serious about egg production and making an income from it, I’d go with a whole flock of Gold Stars. They start to lay earlier than other breeds, are prolific layers of nice-sized brown eggs, have excellent feed conversion, nice tempered, handle the cold well, and are the best foragers of them all.

Next, at Peter’s request, I’ll show the corral design Matt came up with so that his wife (who does not get cows) will not get trampled. (Or, more often the case, he can run a steer into the trailer all by himself.)