Egg!

Wing ding the Black Star hen has started laying again.

Photo description: metal nest box lined with straw with a golf ball and egg

This is a really good demonstration of the difference between a good layer and fair layers. My Faverolles stopped laying in September and I’m not entirely sure they will ever lay again. They are coming up on their sixth year and their winter egg break keeps getting longer and longer. Even when they are laying, it isn’t every day, but closer to every other day. Wing Ding lays nearly every day. So if you are going for egg production, get a good layer. If you want sweet docile chickens and aren’t as concerned about egg production, then get Faverolles. Know that Faverolles will also be at the bottom of the pecking order if you have a mixed flock. Our flock has everything worked out so that no one’s feathers are being picked to extreme, but they have plenty of space and food and places to hide.

I’m mostly excited the Wing Ding is now laying eggs in the nest boxes in the big coop. The temporary outside coop we set up when the flock was separated gets terribly hot in the summer.

Cold in Texas

We do get some cold in Texas. I went to clean the chicken water and found large ice crystals growing inside.

Photo description: edge of an empty chicken water container with large ice crystals on the side

I have had the large container freeze solid, but haven’t seen these slow growth crystals before, which was neat. I also have a heated water bowl, so the chickens always have thawed water, even when everything else is frozen.

Chicken rock

One of my friends enjoys painting and has quite a flair for it. She had painted rocks at the chorus craft fair and I just had to buy the one that looked like Wing Ding! And then take a picture of Wing Ding with her effigy.

Photo description: Wing Ding the Black Star hen in molt standing behind the painted rock with a black chicken that I’m holding. Painting by Corinna Standlee.

Molt

Wing Ding the Black Star hen doesn’t mess around with her molt. When I took a peek at the coop through the web cam, I thought a predator had broken into the coop and taken out a chicken. I went out and all four hens were fine, Wing Ding was just molting.

Photo description: pile of black feathers on flakes of pine shavings in the back corner of the roost
Photo description: Black Star hen in molt, looking quite bedraggled and spots with no feathers, with the new pin feathers coming in

This is one of the characteristics of a good layer. They molt quickly and get back to laying. My Faverolles are not good layers and take months to molt. They are all over five years old, though, so we might have seen the last of their eggs.

Cuddles

The back corner of the roost in the coop is the prime sleeping position for the chickens. Since Wing Ding the Black Star hen has taken to the roost, it has been her domain and the Faverolles have given her space. I caught them on camera recently snuggling up, though. I’m not sure if Wing Ding let them, or she was asleep when they shuffled over. Positive outcome either way.

Photo description: three hens in a tight group on the corner of a roost made with dimensional lumber, pine flakes on the floor and wainscoting on the wall