This was a picture of Wilbur from a few years ago.
This is Wilbur now . . well, last night.
He moved just as I took the picture but can you see that he’s lighter?
Rebecca (I think it was) commented that she didn’t know birds got gray so I googled it. I found that they technically do not get gray, but lose pigment in their feathers as they get older. Isn’t that kinda what happens to us? It’s actually very similar so . . call it what you like, Wilbur is getting older and lighter colored.
Cindi says
Is it time to get out the incubator and make sure Wilbur passes on some of his good genes to another rooster?
Judy Laquidara says
It’s too hard introducing new chicks to the others. I won’t add chicks unless they hatch their own, then the moms take care of the introductions and everyone learns to play nice. Also, even if it was Wilbur’s chick, once it grows up, two roosters together will fight and we wouldn’t be able to keep them together. Once the other chickens (down to 4 hens and the one bad rooster) are gone, I’m only keeping one group of chickens.
Phyllis says
How long do your chickens normally produce? What is their life span? What do you do with them at the end? We used to have about 1300 when I was at home and a truck would come get them when Daddy was ready to replace them, but I have no idea how old they were at that time.
I also have an unrelated question. A few weeks ago, you posted a link where yeast was available and I ordered some It is instant in a one pound “square”. Have never seen it packaged like that. One of the squares is hard as a brick and the other is powdery. Will the hard one become powdery when I open it. I have only ever used the little packets and have not made bread in a LONG time. How much is used in a typical loaf of bread?
Thanks for any information.
Judy Laquidara says
First – the yeast. Yes. It sometimes happens that way. I had some sent to Chad and he said the same thing – one is hard and one is not. I’ve had it happen often. I think they are vacuum sealed very tightly and there must be a bit of an air leak in the one that’s powdery. I always use that one first and yes, when you open the other one, you’ll hear the “swoosh” as it sucks in air and then it will be all powdery too.
How much for a typical loaf? It all depends on the recipe. One of those little individual packets you buy (often the three pack) – one of those is 2-1/4 tsp. Whole wheat breads and heavier, denser loaves sometimes take more yeast. Most recipes will tell you either one packet or give you the measurements to use.
Once I open that 1 pound bag of yeast, I pour it into a mason jar and keep it in the fridge with a lid. The packages that aren’t opened are stored in the freezer.
Now . . the chickens. Different breeds lay longer than others. There are breeds that will lay an egg just about every day and they may lay for only 2 years. There are some that lay 4 or 5 per week and some that lay 2 or 3 per week.
We don’t get rid of any of our chickens. Every now and then predators will get a few (a possum managed to get in one night before the door closed and killed 6 of them). Since some get hatched, some die . . I never know how old any of them are. The Wyandottes (4 hens and the mean rooster) are in a coop by themselves and we’ve had them 2 years. They’ve never been good layers. When I had six hens in there, I might get 1 or 2 eggs per day but often, I didn’t get any. Now we are down to four hens in there and I’ve about stopped checking for eggs.
In the other coop, I have 19 hens and I’ll get anywhere from 9 – 14 eggs from them per day now. The summers are rough on them all and by about September or October, they’re about worn out and stop laying almost completely til early March. Some chickens will stop laying so much when the days are shorter but I think for this batch, it’s more that the heat about kills them and it takes a while to recover. Until summer before last, they kept laying right through the winter.
Phyllis says
Thank you so much for the information. So thankful to you for your blog and I that I have learned and tried as a result of reading your posts.
Judy Laquidara says
Thank you! I love writing about the things we do around here and am so happy that some take the time to read it and comment.
Nelle Coursey says
Just like our dogs get gray around their muzzles.
Susan Nixon says
And needs a foster rooster to teach good habits!
Rebecca in SoCal says
Yes, it was me. Yes, I can see he’s lighter. And yes, that is exactly what happens to our hair! The “grayness” of anyone depends on how many of their hairs still have pigment. I can see that many of my hairs are simply white.
Ruth says
There’s more to the yeast question! Yeast is a live organism sort of in hibernation without air, water and sugar. As soon as you open a jar or brick of yeast, you expose it to air, and it begins to age. With a small amount of yeast in a dark colored glass jar, you can leave it in the fridge and it will be useful for several months, maybe longer.
With the “brick” of yeast, it is better to leave the yeast in the package until you need some, then roll out the air and close it tightly every time you take out yeast for a recipe. This keeps the yeast much fresher for much longer.
For example: my Mother-in-law knew I made my own bread when my children were small, and that I used the large baker’s packages of yeast. She showed me how she had put the yeast into a quart size mason jar in the fridge, with a tight lid on it. But, she said, it no longer worked very well. I explained that unless you are going to use the yeast in a large jar fairly quickly (say within six months), that it is better to keep the air out of contact with the yeast. She wasn’t too happy with that information.
Judy Laquidara says
Don’t do as I do but I open up the bag, put the yeast in a clear glass Mason jar and it stays active way past the expiration date. In fact, I found a partial jar in the back of the fridge yesterday and the expiration date was 7/2019. I made rolls with it this morning and it worked fine. It had been in the jar probably since at least January, 2019. I just don’t find it to be that fragile.
For 20 years or more I’ve kept yeast in the fridge in a jar with a lid for well over a year if I wasn’t making a lot of bread that required yeast and I’ve never had it lost it’s “power”.