Well, the chickens are now 20 weeks old and no eggs yet. I think that with the cold weather and shorter days, they may not start really laying until the spring. We’ll see.
Sweetie gets out of the pen on a daily basis. Yesterday, I found her up in a dogwood tree, trying to entice the other chickens to fly on up! She is such a rebel! I am worried that she will get hurt, but Suki seems to ignore her. In fact, Suki has been breaking into the pen but not for the chickens. I found her in there the other day… chickens on one side and suki on the other, by the food! It seems that Suki thinks she is a chicken and needs to eat scratch. I certainly don’t mind throwing Suki a little scratch if it means she will leave the chickens alone 🙂
I suspect the chicken feed won’t hurt her any. I think dogs’ attitude toward food of any sort is “Hey! Can I eat that? Well ALRIGHT then!” and away they go.
Our ducks were hatched in May and laid their first eggs in October, so about 20-25 weeks. Our ducks have always laid well in the late fall and winter, once they are done molting. So you may get eggs for your winter breakfasts yet!
Better scratch than chicken poop! My old dog thought that stuff was the greatest..bleah.
My girls are 24 weeks old now and while the Buffs started laying a couple of weeks ago the Ameracaunas are just getting ready to (only one egg from them so far). On avergae these girls will be closer to 6 mos and that’s actually better for their innards. If they start laying soon you should have eggs through the winter, we have.