We adopted 25 chickens in mid-March of 2007 from Murray McMurray Hatchery. It is amazing how fast they grew! We selected the "ornamental layer collection," which meant that we got several different varieties in our group of 25.
We now have 19 "ladies" who were laying about a dozen (or so) eggs each day, but they're currently molting, meaning we only get 5 or 6 per day currently. They lay beautiful white, brown, and green eggs, but we haven't yet solved the mystery of which chickens lay which eggs. They're very sly!
We feed our ladies Purina Layena because it has no animal by-products.
They live for their "candy" each morning, which consists of a couple of handfuls of birdseed sprinkled out each morning. They go crazy for it!
While our chickens aren't technically free-range, meaning they don't have reign over all ten acres because of their tendency to sneak into the garden to eat the tomatoes and other growing veggies, they have a large coop, a 30' x 30 'outdoor play yard, and even a fan to keep them cool in the summer.
Most of the ladies have names--at least the ones that look different enough to tell them apart from one another. For those that look too similar, we call them all by the same name, and they don't seem to mind!
Our chickens' eggs come in a rainbow of colors, from white and cream to brown and a beautiful greenish-blue hue.
Check out these facts from Mother Earth News:
