Tag Archives: chickens

Scoop at the Coop: First Eggs! 2025

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When our most recent flock of chicks was brand new this past August, we kept them under a heat lamp to maintain their body heat. We were able to wean them from the heat lamp by the time they were about 6 weeks old. But in January, during the recent nationwide cold snap, we made a decision to turn the heat lamp back on. I think it was the low of minus six degrees that did it. 

The girls stayed close together, cuddling and fluffing up their feathers to insulate themselves and conserve energy. I could also see that they were eating more food than usual.  Continue reading →

The Zen of One Fried Egg

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This is one of my favorite old posts. Last fall, my sister came to Cleveland for a visit and for the wedding of an old friend’s daughter, and I enjoyed seeing the smile on her face as she mentioned this post from years back. Ever since then, I’ve been thinking about reposting it. In honor of my sister, and in memory of the chickens we used to have before a few raccoons and other wild things destroyed our coop one miserable day a few years back, I repost it here today. We are hoping to get our coop back on line this year so that we can resume telling stories about our chickens.  Continue reading →

Scoop at the Coop, Spring 2014

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After a brutal winter with long weeks of short days, and single-digit temperatures, the hens are once again out and about, chowing down on the grass and sucking up all the worms. They’re racing across the lawn and along the edge of the woods, enjoying the freedom to spread their wings and wiggle their tail feathers with abandon.

The girls are laying eggs again after months of little or no activity, and these eggs are spectacular. The yolks sit tall and proud above the clear, compact whites, and they are so deep yellow that probably no one would challenge you if you chose to call them orange. That gorgeous orange-yellow color comes from all the polyphenols and beta-carotene (a precursor of Vitamin A) in the grass that they are eating with relish. I think they really missed the bugs, worms, and grass. Laying mash can get very boring, the equivalent, in my mind, of living on oatmeal or shredded wheat for months at a time.

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