Meet the Chickens

Different breeds of hens lay different color eggs. Leghorns lay white eggs. Barred Rocks lay brown eggs. Araucanas lay blue eggs. The girls here at Casa Gallina are now mixed breeds as they’ve mostly all been born here and all have some bit of Araucana genetics in them (My original Big Daddy Rooster was a pure Araucana), so our eggs range from white, to different shades of brown, to beautiful shades of greens and blues – some speckled – some not.

Depends on how old she is. Hens don’t begin laying until they’re about six months old. Then she’s as productive as she’ll be from then until she’s about two years old, when she can lay as many as five eggs per week! It also, however, has to do with the hours of light per day. So a productive hen will lay more frequently at summer solstice, and usually completely stops laying at winter solstice. And at about three years old, she’s finished laying. And the good news is that she’s welcome to spend her twilight years hanging out with rest of the flock here at Casa Gallina.

Big Daddy does have quite a job keeping the girls happy (fertile), however, as virile as one might like to believe he is, he doesn’t get to all the hens every day, but about half of them. I know this because in the spring, when my mama hens sit on a clutch of eggs, usually about half hatch. Some would say that it’s healthier to eat a fertile egg than an infertile egg. Energetically speaking I would agree. But I would challenge anyone to tell me which is a fertile one and which is not.

Only if they’re “broody”. A broody hen is a hen that wants to sit on eggs to hatch them. This is a seasonal and hormonal occurrence and only a few of my girls are broody hens (and they’re obviously my mama hens too!) I leave my broody hens each spring with a clutch of eggs to sit on and hatch. Otherwise hens most of the time lay an egg in communal nests and leave it to go about their business with no mind to the egg they just layed. Those I gladly collect and distribute to all my guests!