Today We Bought Three Eggs

Following the mink debacle, we have 32 hens left.  On average they give us 21 eggs each afternoon that we pick up.  The birds roam around all day long out in the pasture, scratching through cow patties for bugs and worms and "recycled" grain.  They'll chase june bugs and other critters that creep, crawl and fly.  They eat clover and other grasses.

Long about mid-morning, they'll make their way to the hen house and lay their eggs.  You can always tell when they've laid because they sing a little song as if they are proud of their accomplishment.  I'll have to record it one day and post it.  It is a lot prettier than the shrill, loud cry of the rooster as he exerts dominance over the flock.

We produce a good number of eggs and we eat a good number of eggs each day.  "It's power food!" one of our customers said.  Still, we went to the feed store and bought 3 brown eggs:

They aren't for eating.  Not for us, anyway.  These are chalk or ceramic eggs.  When I gathered eggs the other afternoon, the very last ceramic egg in the laying boxes was gone.  For every ceramic egg that goes missing, that means there's a dead or dying snake somewhere.

You see rat snakes (we call them chicken snakes) get into the hen house often and eat eggs.  When they are in the barn, I let them go as I am more than happy with them seeking out and eating rats.  But when they start eating our eggs, that's where I put my foot down.  I put a ceramic egg in the laying boxes closest to the little patch of woods.  The snakes slither into the hen house, curl up in the box and have themselves an egg breakfast.  Except, when they eat a ceramic egg, they develop a massive case of constipation and end up dying from the blockage.  Sometimes, we'll find the skeleton and the ceramic egg and we're able to use it again.

What I've learned to do is before I put them in the boxes, I'll get a marks-a-lot permanent marker and put a stripe around the egg.  The ceramic eggs look so much like a real egg, that I'll tend to pick them up.  They don't crack on the edge of the black cast iron skillet!  The snakes or the chickens don't seem to mind the black stripe, but it really helps us out.

Here's the nest with some good old country eggs along with the "snake bait" egg.  You see what I mean?  It looks so realistic.  The stripe really helps.

We're coming into prime snake season as it warms up, so we'll watch to see how long our striped eggs last.  A ceramic egg costs as much as a dozen real eggs cost.  I've heard a golf ball works just as well, but I kind of like supporting our local feed store and the eggs have a more pastoral feel than a golf ball does.  Beware serpents!  Things aren't always what they seem...

Gimme My Egg Back!

It hasn't even been a month ago since I posted the FAKE EGGS POST.  In it I explained that snakes had run off with almost all of our nest eggs.  The post shows how we purchased more and marked them with a Sharpie so as not to get them confused.  This afternoon it was almost time for church, but I decided that I could go collect eggs first, package them and put them away.

When I opened the henhouse door, this is what greeted me:

You can see by the bulge in the snake's neck that he has swallowed on of our new ceramic eggs!  See, this snake is doomed.  His digestive system will not break down and digest a solid ceramic egg.  He has a death sentence.  The thing is, he'll slither out to the woods and die, taking my ceramic egg with him.  No sir, that's not gonna happen.

I grabbed a shovel and gave the rat snake a chop behind the head.  I used my foot to push the egg out of the snake.

The snake was greedy.  In addition to the ceramic egg, he ate a real chicken egg.  It burst when I popped the snake with the shovel and egg yolk ran out of the snake.  Hens quickly surrounded the deceased snake and began eating the yolk.  Cannibals!

On the bright side, I got the ceramic egg back and put it back in the nesting box.  All's well that ends well.  It didn't end so well for the snake.  We let these snakes go when they are in the barn.  They do a service by eating rats.  When they enter the hen house, however, it's a different thing altogether.  They pay the ultimate price for this transgression.

These snakes are pretty much harmless to people.  They'll just give you a good scare, because they get so big.  This one measured about 5 1/2 feet long.

Tricia was glad it was me that found the snake.  She's killed them before, but she'd rather not.  I tossed the ceramic egg back in the nesting box and for the time being, we still have our full inventory of fake eggs in the boxes.

Why Would You Buy Fake Eggs?

On her way to the feed store on Saturday to get three 50 pound bags of chicken feed, I asked milkmaid Tricia if she would mind picking up some fake brown ceramic eggs while she was out.  Why would we purchase fake ceramic eggs?  There are several reasons, but I'll tell you ours - SNAKES!

Tricia came back with a package of four eggs below along with a funny story from the owner of the feed store.

The feed store owner is a very kind and out-going lady with a great personality.  When she saw Tricia's purchase of ceramic eggs, she asked, "Are you having trouble with snakes in the hen house, too?!"  She was very animated with hand expressions in her description of finding THREE snakes in the last week.  She had a dull shovel and it made the job of snake-killing hard.  She killed two of them, but had to call her son-in-law to come with a gun and shoot one down off of the rafters.

Yes, we've had the same problem lately.  When the rat snakes get in the hen house and begin eating eggs, we kill the snakes.  I hate to do it because they do a mighty fine job of keeping the rat population down, but they have an affinity for the eggs and that won't do.  When we catch them in the act, a shovel or a pipe or a board quickly and humanely dispenses of the offending reptile.

One other way we thin the population is with ceramic eggs.  We place a ceramic egg in the nesting boxes and when the snake gets in the box and swallows a ceramic egg, it has a fatal effect on the snake.  Unable to digest the egg, it gets an incurable case of constipation that kills him.  Over time our inventory of ceramic eggs disappears.  Sometimes we retrieve the egg from the snake's skeleton and we'll recycle them.  This time, with only 1 egg remaining, I had Tricia get four more.  The first thing I do is take a Sharpie and mark a big "X" on the ceramic eggs.  They look so real, if you aren't careful, you'll collect the fake egg and try to make an omelet with it.  The "X" alerts you to leave it in the nesting box.  It's for snakes to eat - not us!

Here is the last of the ceramic eggs alongside some fresh-laid REAL eggs.  See how real it looks?  It would be easy to confuse, and you can see why the snake eats them.

I stepped into the hen house to deposit a ceramic egg in each of the boxes on the side of the hen house that is adjacent to the woods.  Some of the hens had already laid their eggs and some were in the process of egg laying.  They fluffed up their feathers and made irritating noises to shoo me away from my task.

Hens like their privacy when laying and I was an intruder to their peaceful place.  It wouldn't take long.  I just needed to drop four eggs in four boxes.  This Aracauna let me know in no uncertain terms that I needed to leave.

My job was done and I was out the door.

Now, each box had a fake egg in it, and this will help with the snake problem.  There are five boxes on the other side, but the snakes always are on this side since it's closest to the woods.  I need to get the machete and clean out the ever-encroaching woods.  When it gets all grown up, it encourages snakes, possums, rats and other critters to visit Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.    

Update on the Ceramic Egg Experiment To Stop Egg-Eating Chickens

To review briefly, we've had serious issues with hens that are eating eggs in the hen house.  As soon as the eggs are laid, they eat them.  We find more broken, empty eggs in the nesting boxes than whole eggs.  We've lost dozens and dozens of eggs.  Frustrating!  We've read numerous tips on how to end this tragedy.  None of them worked.  Then we learned that if you put "fake" eggs that are ceramic in the nesting boxes it would stop the egg-eating.  The rationale behind this is that chickens will try to eat the fake eggs in the boxes and it would either hurt their beaks or it wouldn't yield food, so they would give up and stop breaking and eating eggs.

Here are the ceramic eggs = $8.99 for nine eggs delivered right to our door.

I went out the evening that the ceramic eggs came in, even though it was dark and deposited one in each nesting box.  I couldn't wait to put this remedy into immediate effect! 

Review:  Well, I'll get right to the point.  I think the people endorsing the efficacy of ceramic eggs in stopping hens from eating eggs were purveyors of ceramic eggs looking to boost sales and profit margins of their ceramic eggs in inventory.  Here's what I found the next day:

I think I even caught one hen using the ceramic egg to sharpen her beak to a finer point to enable her to peck through the eggs quicker to eat them.  I'm joking about that, but who knows!  It just may be true.

In summary, the ceramic egg experiment was a dismal failure.  Don't waste money on ceramic eggs to break hens' habit of eating their eggs.  At least I was only snookered out of $9.  The ceramic eggs will continue to sit in the nests.  Someday they might deter a chicken snake from eating more eggs.  For now, we'll continue with our current course of action, which is to make numerous trips out to the hen house to gather eggs as soon as they are laid to try to save as many as we can.  Tricia did catch one hen eating an egg today and she quarantined her in a cage.  I think that hen may be turned into a nice chicken soup this winter.  We will try to do the same for each egg-eater, but what if they've ALL picked up that bad habit?  Well, at least it will be good "soup weather" for the next couple of months.

Hope This Does the Trick

I've reported about a problem we're having with our hens.  They've picked up a really bad habit and it has spread to many in the flock - they are eating their eggs!  We've tried several things to try to stop this.  Some said that this is a result of them not getting enough calcium.  To remedy that, we put even more oyster shells out for them.  This didn't do anything to solve it.

Currently, we go outside several times a day and gather eggs as they are laid before the egg-eaters arrive, peck the eggs and eat the contents and then the shell.  By doing this, we've at least been able to get a few eggs each day.  We have seriously thought of putting all of our hens in the freezer and starting with fresh pullets.  We'll try another solution before we go that route.  It arrived in the mail today!

These are ceramic eggs.  We've used ceramic eggs, wooden eggs, and chalk eggs in nesting boxes before, but they were to combat another enemy - chicken snakes.  Chicken snakes would eat the fake eggs and it would kill them.  Over the years, I've lost many fake eggs as the snakes eat them, crawl off somewhere and die.  I've recovered a few from snake skeletons, but most are gone.

Some people have had success with these to break their hens of the egg-eating habit.  You simply place a ceramic egg or two in the nesting boxes.  When the egg eater(s) come and peck on the ceramic egg, they get a surprise.  The hard egg hurts their beak.  When it doesn't break, they move on and eventually tire of pecking on an egg that yields no nourishment, thus breaking the habit.

This egg-eating habit of the hens not only reduces the eggs we actually get to eat, but it makes collecting the remaining eggs a real chore.  The eggs that don't get eaten, are very difficult to clean as they have dried yolk on them and hay and feathers and dirt stick to the egg.  Washing the eggs with water to clean them washes off the protective "bloom" and reduces the shelf life of the egg.  I didn't want to wait another day.  I walked out to the hen house tonight with the ceramic eggs.

The hens were nestled all snug in their beds, with thoughts of egg-eating rushing through their heads

I opened the nesting boxes and deposited a ceramic egg in each box.

The eggs look mighty real. 

We'll see if this works and will report back to you!

Two Less "Tweets"

"I've got my eye on you two!"

Our Maker's Acres Family Farm is not on Twitter, but with baby chicks running around the barn, we have our fair share of "tweets".  Sadly, there are two less tweets from the original four.  Yesterday's Post (Click here to read) left you with a teaser at the end about the demise of two of momma hen's offspring.

In the photo above, momma hen appears to be alone, but as you can tell she's looking down.  She is protecting her little family by keeping a watchful eye on them. She's giving them freedom, but at the same time she is ready to step in, if necessary, to help them out.  So what is she looking at?  Well, this for starters:

I can't quite get that high up on the gate, Momma

Where's the other one? Ah, there she is:

We'll keep trying, though.  One of these days, we'll get there.

But where are the other two?  This was a great mystery until last week.  Benjamin was at a school function so I was gathering eggs for him.  I picked up eggs out in the pasture in the chicken tractor, then I gathered some from the henhouse, some from the goat barn, behind the freezer we use to store chicken feed in and then some in the nesting boxes in the goat milking stall.  The last place was a couple of nests that hens made atop some hay stacked in the goat milking stall.

When I reached in to pick up the eggs, I'm not kidding you, a five foot long snake was in the nest, coiled around about a half dozen eggs with one in his mouth.  I ran for a shovel, swinging wildly, but the snake escaped underneath the pallet.  It was a snake that is harmless to humans - a rat snake or a chicken snake, as we call them. Although they are harmless, they get huge and thus are scary when you come across them.

They are named after what they eat.  I have a buddy that will NOT kill them.  He calls them 'heat-seeking missiles' that rid his barn of rats.  He's right, you know. But... they'll also rid your barn of baby chicks and I'm 100% certain that that snake had the #2 chicken combo meal off the value menu one day last week.   That's where the other two chicks went.  So what to do?

Well, I'm not like my buddy.  I'm going to kill the snake.  Here's how.  I purchased four ceramic eggs from the feed store.

I'll place them in the nest atop the hay and the snake will eat the ceramic eggs thinking they are real eggs.  Except these eggs will give him a case of constipation that no amount of Metamucil will heal. The snake will be stopped up and he'll slither off and die.  I'll discover the missing ceramic egg one day in a snake skeleton under the barn floor or a pallet and I'll recover it and use it again.

So I placed one ceramic egg in with the other three real eggs in one of the nests.  The ceramic egg is the egg in the 11 o'clock position in the photo below.  Can you see the problem? They look TOO much like real eggs.

I did have to make one change since these look and feel SO much like a real egg - I added a racing stripe to differentiate them.  Otherwise, when gathering eggs each day, Benjamin would mistake the ceramic eggs for a real one and Tricia would discover it when she tries to break it on the cast iron skillet when making an omelet for breakfast.  We can't have that!

Putting a racing stripe on the ceramic eggs ~ They're racing to get into a chicken snake in the henhouse!

The chicks, hopefully, after watching their sisters become snake food are being vigilant and watchful for the snake, seeking protection beneath their momma's protective wings.  We hope the hen is on her guard as well, protecting her babies under her wings.  You know, this story has relevance to humans in addition to our fine feathered friends in the barnyard.  The Good Lord wants to protect us under his wings.  Sometimes, however, we want to do things our own way.  We're hard-headed ( tête dur) and venture away from Him.

There is a Serpent out there that means to do us harm.  He wishes to devour us and that's exactly what he'll do, too.  If we're wise, we'll stay under the protective cover that our Great God provides.

He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.  Psalm 91:4