Chickens

- I now have two chickens laying dependably every day, plus one chicken laying sporadically. I'm guessing that the two dependable layers are my two Golden Comets, as the eggs are smaller and roughly the same size, and the sporadic layer is my New Hampshire Red, as the egg is much lighter in color and HUGE. I actually felt sorry for whatever chicken laid it when I found it, because that was a jumbo egg if ever I saw one, lol.

~ Chicken coop is finished carpentry wise - big shout out to my dad, who gave me a hand installing hardware on Saturday! - and looks adorable. Maybe even cuter than I originally envisioned? But it still needs painting. I spent $20 at WalMart buying paint that wasn't even the colors I originally wanted (French Cream and Ivy Green), and then I came home and none of the paint worked. *sigh* I ended up buying two "testers" of higher-quality paint at Lowes for under $6 - yes, I'm kicking myself - and they covered beautifully (although the green still isn't exactly what I was envisioning, and I can't promise that it won't get repainted sometime in the future.

~ My goal is to get the rest of the painting done this evening so that it can by dry and ready to be moved into the bigger dog run on Friday. The hens are ready for bigger digs, and I'm terrified of letting them free range (I love them and would be devastated if something got one of them!) so they need a bigger run. This one I'm putting them in is more than twice as big as the one they're in now - I can actually stand upright in it! Which will be amazing lol - and has room for the coop. Exciting.

- Here's a cool fact about eggs: Did you know you should try to avoid wet-washing your eggs? It actually INCREASES the bacteria content of your egg because it opens the pores (yes, eggs have pores) and causes them to draw IN bacteria. Plus, eggs have a natural, God-given coating called a "bloom" that is actually antibacterial! I found this pretty cool. :)