Hens and Poo

I had an awful surprise last night as I went to gather the eggs from my ladies days work. Right there in the nest was one on my hens one of the two that are still producing in this cold weather dead. Sitting pretty on the nest like everything was ok. I reached under her to see if she was guarding some eggs she flopped over and I realized she had died! I am at a loss don't know what happened she’s not even a year old yet and they all seem as healthy as can be, it was later than usual and I’m in the middle of several big projects so I didn’t get a chance to open’er up to see what if anything I could determine. Oh well such is life I guess, it just hurts to lose a hen as they take a long time to replace. (Not that losing any of my animals doesn’t suck)

We are hoping to expand the laying flock this summer as we are getting more requests for eggs than we can manage to fill. When the hens were producing at full tilt they gave use a fresh dozen and a half everyday which more than paid there way on the farm. We are fortunate enough to be able to sell of the eggs we get at a lower cost than even the super market sells what they call eggs for, undercutting everyone and still turning a tidy profit. Not only do we help out our neighbors with a better product for a little less than they can get anyplace else I have found that it pays us back ten fold. Now if we can get people to stop showing up at 5:30 in the morning to get eggs we will be on the right track! LOL

I had a long talk with our neighbor the other day and found out he has been paying someone to come and pick up his composted manure! He has a horse and has been piling this black gold in the wood lot behind his house for the last 10 years and it has just been composing away then, and I don’t know why but he started paying some one to come and get it out so he can start over! Wow am I glad I had that chat. I let him on a little secret ANYONE WITH A GARDEN WOULD HAVE PAID HIM to come get it. So needless to say, I now have more manure than I can use in a year for my veggies, saved myself a couple hundred bucks on manure, and helped my neighbor out. I guess the point I’m trying to make is Know what you have, one mans crap is another mans treasure.

Any ways just remember you may be crazy, or you may be right, either way be prepared!