Laying Hens

In the early Fall, we had decided to get rid of the chickens. It’s hard to go anywhere and we were thinking we wanted to travel around and try to find the spot where we want to move. Now, we’ve decided to stay here for a few years, probably longer . . and the chickens are laying machines again.

Last summer was so hard on them. I changed out their water several times a day. Our well water is cold coming from way underground but it doesn’t take it long to get hot when it’s 115 degrees out there. I gave them frozen “treats” from the freezer – frozen berries, zucchini that had gotten too big and I spiral cut it and froze it – anything cold to help them but they it was so hot for so long and they just about stopped laying. I went from begging people to take eggs to having to buy eggs for our own use.

We had wondered if they would ever start laying again or if they were damaged beyond repair but last month, we began getting more and more eggs and now they’re back to laying like they were before last summer . . just in time for summer again! We’re getting 1-1/2 to 2 dozen eggs per day again. That’s a whole lot of eggs. I give a lot of them away and I freeze dry a lot of them.