Shorter days/ longer nights November 20th 2013

Late October I started noticing a slow drop in egg production and made a mental note to keep an eye on it. As we proceeded into November and we regularly dropped by 30% (3 eggs) I discovered that not having 14 hours of daylight can start to affect the hormones that control egg production. If you wanted to keep your eggs coming during the shorter months of winter you would need to supplement with artificial light. We installed a timer so that most of the additional hours would be during the morning, which according to the experts was the best. Before the week was out the chickens were back to their old standards!
Now wer just have to deal with frozen water!
Ahhhh, the joys of cold weather......  Hey, it could be much worse, we could be up north!

Flying the coop!

the other day we came home from the White Lightning festival and found one of the chickens on the outside of the chicken coop trying to find out how to get back in! the fence was bent down in the spot where she flew over. a couple of days later I was standing on the outside talking to a friend and that same chicken flew right over the fence.
it was definitely time to take action. the challenge was getting the rain to stop long enough to do it. where were finally able to put some fruit netting across the top of the coop. the best part of that is now we don't have to open and shut the chicken run door. but that's half the fun in having chickens is going down the say hello to them in the morning. I think I'll still stop in and see them on my way to work everyday. one of the chickens likes to let us pet her! she'll stand there and kind of push for wings back and just let you Pet her it's so cute. I think I'll try picking her up today if it's dry enough I don't want mud all over me from the rain.
I have attached a video of the chickens checking out their renovated digs after putting up the netting. They are so funny!

New chicks for the farm

March 22 2013
Well we have entered into the realm of chicken farmers now! we picked up six baby chicks at Tractor Supply last Sunday. they were 2 weeks old, they are a cross between production red and white leghorn and though it's a little early to tell it looks like they'll be white. we have been having lots of fun with them this week. I have downloaded some pictures of them. we will be getting 6 more next Saturday from poultry hollow here in East Tennessee. they will be two production red two white Sussex and 2 of another breed I can't remember right now.
Hoping to get some planting done next week. it's been really cold with temperatures in the teens last night.