Happy ChrismaHanaKwanzaka to one and a Merry Non-Denominational Winter Solstice to the all!
Although what little winter we've had this year so far hasn't been rough for us it seems to have been rough on the ladies. Ever since the fall equinox we've noticed a dramatic, although somewhat expected, drop in egg production. We knew with the diminishing hours of daylight there would be less egg laying going on. What we didn't expect was for it to almost dry up completely.
Not knowing what to do we went and brought 6 new ladies into the flock. These ISA Browns are egg laying machines. Nothing stops them. Even at the worst of times we're seeing at least an egg every other day from each of them. While we are thankful for the presence and production we have learned that bringing them in when we did was probably not the best thing to do.
By bringing in the new girls we didn't solve the problem of why egg production was so low and, in fact, added a new stress on the rest of the flock by forcing them all to establish a new pecking order with 6 new birds. We went through long stretches where those ISA Browns were the only girls laying at all.
Then it happened. A sad day. A bird had passed from age and illness (much of our flock is over 3 years old, many of them I'd suspect are well over 5 years). The mean old bird who we affectionately called 'Broody Moma' after her propensity to brood all day and being one of the higher ups in the pecking order was gone and with her passing a valuable lesson has been taught.
We've learned just how much damage a broody hen can do to a flock, particularly when it dominates everyone's favourite nesting box. Most of our two dozen plus hens only use one or two of the nesting boxes and when that box is occupied, well, not much happens with regards to egg laying.
It has been a couple weeks since her passing now, and the ISAs are well integrated into the flock, so I believe the rest of the girls are getting back to themselves and the Easter Eggers are proving it. Today we had a half dozen eggs with many the breeds representing. We got two dark chocolate eggs, a couple of pink one, a green, and even one of our highly sought after blue eggs.
It's been a wonderful first Christmas for us on Lil Acre Farm, and even the girls saw fit to give us the gift of Easter Eggs again.
