Thursday, February 2, 2012

Spring is in the Air. Rural Thursday.

About 2 weeks ago i posted about my broody hen. She had disappeared and then was later found hiding behind the hay in our shed sitting on about 10 eggs. i wasn't sure how long she had already been setting, so we let her keep her eggs and have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of new chicks. Hens typically set 21 days to incubate their eggs, sometimes a day or two longer.

Twenty-one days came and went, and she didn't get off the nest. So i went out to check her and see if she had any peeps hiding under her. Instead, i found close to 30 eggs!!!

i thought the hen was hidden behind the hay, but apparently a couple of my other ladies knew she was back there too and continued to lay. The dark brown eggs belong to her. The light brown belong to either Sunny or my black hen. The big white eggs are coming from our only white leghorn. i thought all of the birds had stopped laying over the winter, as we don't have a light in our coop this year. Doh!! Seeing all those wasted eggs is so frustrating. Our ladies just refuse to lay in the coop. i put X's on them so i can collect any fresh eggs, since they are laying here.

The chickens are not the only ones with spring fever. See the grin on Casper's face? He's smiling because my doe Delilah has come into heat. Although he is a wether (castrated male), it hasn't stopped him from noticing. :) Male goats will stick their face in the female's urine stream (gross!!), and get it on their upper lips and then they curl their lips back into a smile and inhale the aroma... lovely, eh? They have both been very vocal and active. It's fun watching them chase each other around, show affection and play together. Casper bites at Delilah's haunches and makes a weird nickering sound that reminds me of Chewbacca.



Despite Punxsutawny Phil's prediction of 6 more weeks of winter...it is feeling very spring like here. i've been organizing my seeds, drooling over my seed catalogs, planning my garden...and even starting a few seed trays. Part of me is ready for spring, and part of me is still waiting for winter to show up. It has been so mild this year, i still really want at least one good snow...a few snow days...something.


There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. ~Ruth Stout

i'm participating in the "Rural Thursday" blog hop so click on the rooster below and check out some of the other blogs in the hop!


11 comments:

  1. That has soooo happened to us before with the eggs! We put Xs on ours too now. Those hens - they're sneaky!

    Thanks so much for linking up with Rural Thursdays!

    ReplyDelete
  2. oh look at her, she looks so proud of her eggs and that casper, what a smile! hi back from botetourt :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. oh, dear. that's a lot of eggs for one hen to sit on! good luck w/ chicks!

    came over from rural thursday.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I laughed hen I saw that mountain of eggs -- been there, done that. My husband says I'm a nut to let the hens have their way. Oh well.

    Love the photo of your goat too. I love goats, but don't have any to call my own. I'll just envy yours!

    Thanks so much for sharing with Rural Thursday. So very appreciated. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I grew up with a goat and she was a character. The mountain of eggs is so funny. You would think that they would start to break as the hens sit on them to lay new eggs!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice eggs! We just got our first egg of this year.... so I am super impressed by your pile. Lovely goat as well. :) I do love goats.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great post! And the Speckled Sussex is my very favorite breed of hen : )
    Good luck with the hatch.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow, that hen should make a guest appearance on one of those reality hoarder shows! Very wise of you to x those eggs already there so you can snatch the fresh ones. This made my day.

    ReplyDelete
  9. came by thanks to "rural journal" ... i would love a few fresh eggs. yummy breakfast it would be. (:

    ReplyDelete
  10. Your grinning Casper goat sure put a smile on my face!!

    Silly chickens...my man and I always just look at each other and say "they're chickens" and laugh!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi, I found your blog through Two Bears Farm. The picture of the eggs caught my eye! We thought our chickens were too old to lay any more (they're all at least 4 yrs old) and in Dec we found a huge pile of eggs off our porch where they had been hanging out during the day and obviously laying :/ I tested them all and they were ALL bad. I was so sad :(

    ReplyDelete