All the chickens are adjusting to the warm Mississippi Summer. \u00a0They look forward to their ice water and frozen watermelon at 1:30 each afternoon. \u00a0If I am late, they kick up a fuss and let everybody in the neighborhood know that I am late. \u00a0Spoiled chickens.<\/p>\n
The hens have been laying well, too! \u00a0Out of 9 laying hens, I have been averaging 6-7 eggs each day. \u00a0That is a lot of eggs!<\/p>\n
Maybe we need to review just who all the hens are:<\/p>\n
I have two Rhode Island Reds. \u00a0Their names are Daryl. \u00a0I used to have three Rhode Island Reds. \u00a0Their names were Larry, Daryl and Daryl but Larry died last Fall so all I have left are the two Daryl’s. \u00a0These are the oldest hens I have. \u00a0I got them when they were about 3 months old.<\/p>\n
I have one Barred Rock hen. \u00a0She is very pretty and very stuck up. \u00a0Her name is Greta.<\/p>\n
I have three Black Australops. \u00a0They all go by Rover. \u00a0They know their names, too! \u00a0They are very sweet and docile hens. \u00a0Good layers, too!<\/p>\n
Then, there are the three babies. \u00a0The Easter Eggers. \u00a0They are about 5 months old now. \u00a0They, too, are very good layers. \u00a0Two lay green shelled eggs and one lays blue shelled eggs. \u00a0They are sweet also and as dumb as a brick. \u00a0I really enjoy them!<\/p>\n
Lastly is Peter. \u00a0Peter is my Rooster. \u00a0He is the man of the Coop. \u00a0He takes his responsibility seriously. \u00a0Peter is a young and very amorous lad. \u00a0He is often frustrated that the hens do not return his affections. \u00a0Poor Peter.<\/p>\n
Anyway, one of the Rover’s has gone Broody. \u00a0That means she wants to sit on some eggs and hatch them.<\/p>\n
On average, it takes 21 days of parking on the eggs for them to hatch.<\/p>\n
When we had the cool weather roll through here last week, I wasn’t all the concerned about it but the weather is getting hot\/humid again and I am worried about Rover. \u00a0She will NOT leave those eggs and the nesting boxes are hot!<\/p>\n
The nesting boxes have ventilation and everything but pretty much the hens go in one (and they do have a favorite nesting box~the one that Rover decided to park herself in to hatch those eggs) lay that egg and get “the heck out of Dodge.” \u00a0It is HOT in there!!!<\/p>\n
So, Rover, a black hen, is sitting in a dark nesting box, in 90+ heat\/humidity, all day and all night trying to hatch about 6 eggs for the next three weeks. \u00a0I hope she doesn’t kill herself in the process.<\/p>\n
Google (remember Google is your friend and is infallible) says that broody hens take in 80% less food and water when they are broody. \u00a0I am concerned. \u00a0What a time of year to decided to go off and hatch some eggs.<\/p>\n
But, maybe in the next couple of weeks, I will have some cute little baby chicks! \u00a0That would be fun, now, wouldn’t it!?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All the chickens are adjusting to the warm Mississippi Summer. \u00a0They look forward to their ice water and frozen watermelon at 1:30 each afternoon. \u00a0If I am late, they kick up a fuss and let everybody in the neighborhood know that I am late. \u00a0Spoiled chickens. The hens have been laying well, too! \u00a0Out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,6,8,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2512,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511\/revisions\/2512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}