Friday, December 17, 2010

Gigantic Egg and 9 Week Old Chicks

Tonight, we got back from Harry Potter 7 and after dinner, I went to feed and water the birds and Sid.  The weather has been typically weird: first massively cold, then lots of snow, then a warm front that dumped lots of rain, and now settling into cold, but more seasonal.  I moved the 9 week old birds who are fully feathered out from the brooder to a dog crate.  They become sexually mature some time around the 15th to 26th week and right now should be able to handle the cold, provided I give them lots of water and good food.

My golden sex link who survived the pecking had healed up enough to where I reintroduced her back into the flock (the other one had died, sadly).  I had removed Crooked Toes who will be soon going to freezer camp and put in the barred rock rooster and his pal, the Brahma rooster.  Crooked Toes got demoted when he decided to go after me in typical Rhode Island Red fashion.  So, he's cooling his heels with the ducks.  Since his departure, the chickens in the pen have relaxed a bit.  I've put the Buff Orpington, Bossy Hen, in the cage there to get them all used to her.  She'll be joined by Oddball in a week or two once I get her mixed in properly.

Anyway, I know the Golden Sex Link hadn't laid any eggs since her injury, going on more than a month.  I began to wonder if she would ever lay eggs again.  I found an enormous egg -- larger than a goose egg (!!!)  -- in the nest and knew she had laid it.  Poor hen.  It looks like it is the fusion of 3 or more eggs.  I fully expect to have multiple yolks out of this one.  For such a little hen, she produces such big eggs.  The other golden sex link was my first egg layer and she laid such big eggs, I was so sad when the other chickens beat her up.

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