Our Chickens

This is one of my oldest son's Turkens, or Naked Neck chickens.  They are funny looking chickens, but good layers and friendly birds.

Part of the flock.  The black chickens are called Black Sex-links.  They are excellent egg layers and make up the majority of our flock.  They are very friendly and inquisitive.

Our nest boxes are designed so that the eggs roll to the front of the nest when the hen gets up.  This keep the eggs clean and dry.

Some of our birds refuse to use the nest boxes and prefer to nest on the ground.  We try to keep fresh, dry pine shavings in the coop to keep the birds healthy and the eggs clean.  My daughter's Easter Egger in this picture is aptly named.  Not only does she lay green eggs, but she likes to hide them as well.  We usually find her eggs out in the yard instead of in the coop.  Unfortunately this is the reason we rarely sell our green eggs.

Our rooster Roscoe.  Roscoe is a Silver Laced Wyandotte.  He is not a very good example of what a SLW should look like, but we love him and think he is beautiful despite his flaws.

One of our Silver Laced Wyandotte hens.  I took this picture just seconds before she pecked my camera.

At the moment, we are getting about 2-1/2 dozen eggs a day from our 38 hens.  We try to gather eggs three times a day.  Around 1pm when I let the chickens out of the coop to free range, at 4 when the kids get home from school, and again at 8 when I close the coop for the night.  The eggs are inspected for cracks, sorted, and refrigerated.  I try hard to keep the coop clean so that the eggs to not have to be washed.  This protects the bloom.  Most of the time this works, but occasionally after a rainstorm we have hens with muddy feet in and out of the next boxes so we do have wash the eggs and let them dry before putting them away.