Steak & Eggs

CLUCK, CLUCK, CLUCK!!!

The girls have been very busy lately here on the Shawhan farm. It is not uncommon to come home and collect 18 eggs a day now! Yes, that's right, 18...a number we have never seen before here. Currently there are 5 dozen eggs in the fridge, so if anyone wants/needs eggs, PLEASE tell me and I can give you some.

With the nest box being so busy, leave it to a chicken to get creative. For the past few days we have been finding a few eggs in the big watering trough where the steer hay goes. We put this watering trough (which used to be a chickie brooder...HEY I guess there really is no place like home!) over the fence and into the steer lot that weekend we had no power, thanks to that mega wind storm, and we feared we would run out of water. As a precaution, we filled it for the steers, since with no water equals no automatic waterer. Perhaps out of sheer laziness, we never removed the trough after the steers drank all the water out of it. Dan got creative and started throwingthe steers' daily hay into the trough and over the course of time, a nice soft bed of hay formed. Something the chickens were sure to find.

In the mornings a few cluckies make a bee-line for the trough, as that has now become their "spot". I have witnessed a Golden Comet and an Araucana in there, plus the two blue eggs I found in there the other day is a dead give away as to who frequents the trough. This morning a Comet got mad at me when I peeked over the fence at her...talk about throwing a hissy fit.

The odd thing is, I will see these eggs in the morning and by the evening when I come to "collect", they are gone! Part of me wonders if the steers are enjoying something different to eat, or maybe they are accidentally breaking the eggs as they go in for hay. I think the chickens are picking up on this too, however, instead of laying the eggs somewhere else and somewhere safer, like the nest box, at least one of them is covering up her baby. Tonight I found this egg buried in what looked like an empty trough of hay.

I just couldn't help but see the irony in the poor steers laying beside the trough full of eggs. Literally, steak and eggs!

                                                                                        ...cluck... cluck... cluck...