5 Little Chickens and How They Grew

Our girls are really all grown up now!  All 5 of them have been laying consistently for a few weeks now, and we are loving having so many eggs to enjoy and give to friends and family!  I even made a batch of deviled eggs for an early morning meeting with my fellow leads at the bookstore!  They were gone in a heart beat!

With all the rain we had been getting lately, coupled with the fact that it's been dark when we leave the house and dark soon after we arrive home, the girls' run was getting very muddy.  They'd been cooped up too much, and were getting poop everywhere!  It was getting pretty darn stinky.  So we decided we had best extend the roof out over the whole run with the hopes that it will keep things a bit drier down there.  Since we have to walk into the run to get at their food and water, this was pretty important to me since I don't "do" bad smells.  I just don't have the constitution.  Gonna be a problem if we have kids, I know.  Anyway, we loaded up the Subaru (!) with some metal roofing, and today Kevin has been busily working away at it while I get the house cleaned and raked the backyard free of all the hundreds of pounds of leaves that dropped this week!

Since he needed to get on both sides of the coop to work, the girls have been running around in the yard and I decided they needed a photo shoot!  The lighting wasn't great, but I think they are beautiful anyway.

 The light this morning was phenomenal!  Made it much easier to motivate myself to do some yard work!

 Scrambled still thinks she's hot stuff, and likes being Queen of the Yard!  She still flies into stuff though, so the name still suits her klutzy nature.

 He's pretty hot stuff.  :)  Oh, he also rigged up a water heating system til our real one arrives (hopefully very soon!).  He had to drill a hole in the garage since we don't have any outdoor outlets, and then ran it all the way through the yard up to the coop, very nicely hidden.  Then he attached the brooding lamp to the underside of the coop directly over their waterer.  Hopefully, that will keep things from freezing over the next few days!  It's supposed to be COLD!

 Frittata, Scrambled, Florentine, and Deviled.  Hollandaise just wasn't ready to have her photo taken.

 All 5 of the girls!

 What's up, Chicken Butt?  :)

 Hello there!  She really wanted to peck the camera, but wasn't fast enough for me!  Ha!

  She'll get me next time, I know...

 We are getting about 4 to 5 eggs a day, though with the weather getting colder we're assuming that will dropped off a bit.  They are getting nice and big, and are so delicious!  I'm never going to be able to have store bought eggs on a regular basis again!

There's even one who lays speckled eggs!  

I didn't think I would enjoy having hens around so much, but every day it's fun to go up and say hi to them and give them little treats.  When I went up earlier to take photos, they all ran over to me!  It's like having a pet who gives you yummy breakfast!  :) 

On another note, I made a delicious carrot cake last night for Kevin's birthday.  His birthday was in March, but I don't think he's holding it against me, at least not now that there is actual cake in his belly!  Next year, I'm shooting to get it in the same month at least!