Beautiful Oysterville Eggs!

I’m pleased to report that our girls seem to be back in production once again.  I’d like to say it’s because the days are getting longer and, though I’m sure they are, that’s not it.  Their exposure to light is longer, all right, but it’s because we’ve had a 40 watt bulb on twenty-four/seven in the coop.

We put the light in there not to bolster egg-laying, but to keep the girls from freezing during our cold spell earlier this month.  Lo and behold, within a week they went from not laying at all to giving us one or two eggs a day.  So we left the light on and now they are up to two or three eggs a day among the four of them which is about the best they ever do. I think we’ve only had two four-egg days ever.

Aunt Rye with Banty Chickens

So, do we feel like we are cheating?  Not really.  We’re just pretending that we live closer to the equator than we actually do.  It’s all a matter of geographic perspective.  And the ladies certainly seem to be going along with it, even though they are free-ranging through some pretty cold and stormy days.

Speaking of free-ranging…  Another name for that poultry care process is “pasture fed hens.”  I love that!  I wonder what some of the Oysterville neighbors of few generations back would have thought about such terminology.  I doubt that any other way to raise chickens ever occurred to them.

Meinert Wachsmuth, Sr. and his Chickens

And, as I looked out the window at our girls poking and pecking in our very shaggy-looking lawn, “pasture fed” sounded just about right.  We’re at another ‘tween time as far as the garden goes.  It is too nasty out to mow or dig but, in contrast, the crocuses and daffodils are looking very perky and putting the rest of the yard to shame.  (Yes, this is also the time of the year that I refer to the garden more often than not as a “yard.”  Especially now that Bradley is nearby to put us all to shame garden-wise, no matter what the season!)

Bradley may soon be moving into the Oysterville farming spotlight, himself.  He’s planning to get ‘twelve’ or ‘twenty’ (I’ve heard both numbers) feathered friends to populate the chicken coop behind the Andrews Garage.  I wonder if our girls would like to have a play date now and then?  And will Oysterville’s chicken population then outstrip the resident dog and cat population?  For sure, we humans will be in the minority!  Oysterville:  Egg Capital of the Peninsula!  Whoo Hoo!