Hennie Talk

It’s been hot again lately, I mean even HOTTER than it should, to me, at this time of year. It’s been in the low 90’s, with tomorrow supposed to be nearer to mid-90’s … ugh.

As for my hennies, just the little one, the Bantam Australorp, laid an egg yesterday. I still hope I can keep her, I have no idea of how old she is, but the pattern slowly emerging, with the little bit of data available (just a few days) has her being an every-other-day-er … which is fine with me.

Today Hawklady also laid, this time greener, yes, it had that ‘coating’ appearance, hence the “greener” looking egg, which is the usual with her since … whatever year it was, oh boy, it’s been a couple or something, like, hmmm, maybe, I don’t know, I have to go back through digital photos, then I can make sense of it. :rolleyes:

The Wyandottes both laid today too. It’s curious, they didn’t lay yesterday at all, the day before one of them did, the day before that both did. Today one laid mid-morning, it was Poinsettia, I saw her in the box. 🙂 Later, early-mid-afternoon, their was another egg in the box, had to be Trinity since she’s the only other hen in the pen. 🙂 So as for “timings” of the eggs, a bit odd — if I’m trying to get some kind of pattern out of their layings. The earlier egg today wasn’t early enough to be a “holdover”, in my estimation, from the day before due to “lateness of the day before that laying” … with a basic “24 hours” needed to make a new egg, a hen will holdover to the next morning if it’s “too late” when the “time to lay increment” occurs and wait for next light to lay it. I am starting to track the “approx. time laid” data, as I can, and will see what sort of pattern emerges, of course.

So that’s 1 egg for Thursday (yesterday) and 3 eggs for Friday (today).

I do know that in the days of all the “brown layers” and also my “green layer”, in one pen, Hawklady was a ‘better overall performer’ when compared with the others. I never did fully record an entire laying season … unfortunately my interests wain here and there, and then I get back into it. I collect the eggs always, but am not always as interested in aggregating the data as time goes on when good laying just drones on and on.

I can blame the above somewhat on the Leghorns, which I don’t have now. They were prolific layers, old biddies and laying well still. I have less to watch out for now, then, and so far, four non-producers — those big beatle green blackies — and so I’m currently rabidly looking for eggs out of them and not seeing anything, though three have nice red waxy combs and waddles. I have to chalk it up to the move … it must have just upset them too much internally and it’ll take time to work itself out in each of them. We moved the Leghorns once for a week, when we had to go Up North suddenly for DH’s Mom who was “maybe” dying, but didn’t at that time, but we had a nice visit instead, our last one with her. When we got back, with our girls back home they didn’t lay for awhile. They were laying fine right before we left. The people who had them for that week commented on them “not laying” and I didn’t understand it until I got them home and saw myself that they weren’t laying, but eventually, don’t remember how long it was, they did start to lay again. I’ve read that moves about can distrupt their cycle … so it seems likely that since it’s the 4 Australorps and not one has laid an egg since coming home, but the other biddies have ALL laid a couple of times at the least each, it’s distinctive of their personality as a breed to be more sensitive, I guess, not knowing for sure, just extrapolating the known things into some sort of pattern based on my simple knowledge and experience with hennies and people. :rolleyes:

As things go, I have Hawklady, Poinsettia, and Trinity, as well as the Bantam Australorp, that lay … that’s a possibility of 4 eggs a day. Then there are the four non-producers, who add another 4 in possibility, IF they lay ever. That’s 8 en total. I surely hope they all start to lay soon. 3 or 4 or 1 egg(s) a day aren’t enough for my family. I will have to buy some eggs from another biddie keeper, which is costly, considering I haven’t had to do that except during Molting times the last few years. I really would like to have a few good layers added to the mix, sex-links of some variety would be nice for productivity and plain old fer suredness in girlyhood.

Ah, I’d really just like a plop of land that I could move my biddies to and add a rooster and a few more biddies and get some bitty chickies from my biddies. At least I have my sweeties though. I have the two oddities side by side under those “baskets” now. Hawklady scattered herself out of the dog crate yesterday when I opened the door from the wrong side to protect the opening, so I just slapped the basket over top of her while she was standing under the tree she stopped under. I moved Bantam girl over there too then, hoping they’ll get used to one another after awhile. So far Ms. Hawklady is pretty much keeping her back turned to Bantam girl. Bantam girl seems to be quite sociable, talkative in a soft manner, but it’s not melting Hawklady’s heart, not yet, though really she has the same naturally soft sociable way about herself, in the past she did at the least.

Hawklady is looking better and better now. Her feathering is noticeably now coming in, the no feather spots are getting quite “fluffy” looking, and it won’t be long until she looks ‘brand new’ again! Then I’ll take her portait again. I wouldn’t dare embarrass her in her current condition. 🙂