Part of the way I sold my husband on the farm was a thought that would turn any hungry man on a Sunday morning into mush- fresh eggs. Fresh as in laid an hour ago and the taste melts in your mouth, or at least, I believe it would melt in your mouth. I wouldn’t know since our fancy shmancy chickens have been with us since April and still not one egg.
Our three chickens, Moses, Mohammed, and Moira came from Amber Waves farm in California. I originally chose this type of chicken after seeing it on Tory and Dean (I know) and then researched it and found it was a very “docile” breed which would be a good pet for young children. I thought that would be perfect- eggs and a pet.
We had to order weeks ahead of time and they arrived in the US Mail. My husband and children took to them immediately. I fed them, they played with them. It was the first time I had actually seen my husband or children with a pet and it became clear to me that if they didn’t manage to kill them, these chickens might prove to be a great introduction to farm life. I had this image in my mind of teaching my two year old to get eggs each morning and my husband cooking them up for breakfast. Except, that did not happen.
I paid the “Rooster Fee” which meant $15 extra bucks to ensure that at least one of the 3 chickens would be a hen and if they were all roosters, then we would get a free chicken in the mail to replace a rooster. The thing about silkies is it is very difficult to tell if they are females or males. Most chickens show if they are females of males after a couple of weeks of age. However, Silkies are much more difficult to tell which makes purchasing them, I now know, a gamble.
For weeks I waited for eggs. 16 weeks- FOUR MOTHS- went by and nothing. They eat, they poop, and nothing. No eggs. It is one thing if you are cleaning out a disgusting chicken coop if the chickens are giving you eggs and you want the eggs and their area clean. However, when you have no eggs, and just some chickens that eat and poop, there begins to be a resentful frustrated conversation between the four of you. Each morning I would tell them as I fed them, “Who has laid some eggs for mama this morning?” I did begin to notice that the brown chicken, a…well…”chicken” from the beginning who would run behind the other two white chickens whenever I came near, began to get bigger and more aggressive than the other two. And then, one morning as I lay in bed, I heard the unmistakable sound of a male rooster crowing, “Cock-a-doodle-doooooooooo.”
After some weeks of my husband asking where his fresh eggs were, I decided I needed to bring in reinforcements and ordered “Brown Egg Laying Random” from McMurrays Hatchery (see other post). I moved the Mo’s into a larger pen but still no eggs. Instead, when I try to come in and feed them, Mohammed attacks me. I mean, full on runs at me and pecks HARD. It is hard not to laugh, at both this big fluff coming at me, and at my own fear of the chicken.
When I told Amber Waves I believed we might have males they scoffed and gave me a hard time and said they had “new policies” on Rooster Guarantees. So I realized that the chickens, the ones my sons had played with for the last several months, were going to have to become broilers. Like the geese before them, there is no place on the farm if you don’t produce something eatible.
Now I only have to get the guts and instructions to wring a chickens neck. Conquistadora we shall see.
candyhillfarm 