Homestead Chore #4 (Eggs)

Farm chores NEVER end. When you have animals there is always some kind of work that needs to be done daily. Owning chickens is no different, just not as much work as owning a dairy cow.

We have had many chickens over the past 10 years. It started with a few given to us by my husbands co worker and a few more given to us by a family from our church. Many different breeds and many different colored eggs ;- )

We have never eaten any of our chickens. Hubby has an aversion to chickens (eating them that is) so we use them for egg consumption only. If we ever needed to get rid of any because they were not *doing their duty* we simply gave them away for free.

We have also had many roosters. My favorite has always been the Rhode Island Red. They seem to have the loudest crow of all the other breeds we have had. I even have one now (a banty mixed breed) that will crow on demand. All I have to do is say, "Crow Cup" and he commences to crowing for me. (Awesome rooster.)

We got a whole new batch of hens this past April. They are all Buff Orpingtons. I chose those because they are suppose to be the broodiest of all the breeds as well as dual purposed birds for eating and laying.

I would like to be able to reproduce chickens without having to buy them. That way we could sell a few and even eat them if we needed too. We'll see how it all works out come this spring ;- )

This is about 3 days worth of eggs. We are getting an average of 10 eggs a day. (We have 12 hens) that's really good for this time of the year.

Here they are drying after a washing. I usually just let them sit on the counter until they are needed but the *girls* have been making *messes* on them so they need to be washed immediately. Most of the time the *messes* is the mud from the coop and sometimes the *other.*

Washing is important ;- )

Empty egg collecting basket that my son (13) got for me several Christmas's ago. It's a treasure to me.

Here are all of the eggs after they are washed and placed into old egg cartons. I have been blessed by many people who have given me their old egg cartons instead of throwing them away. They come in very handy when I give some eggs away.

10 eggs a day! What do I do with all of those eggs?

To be continued........

Have a blessed day in THE LORD!

Happy Homesteading!

Amanda

Matthew 6:33