5 brown, 1 green.

3 brown eggs late in the day. Swam usual set.

I was out of town Friday and Saturday. Feeder was emptied when I checked it Sunday morning - 10 pounds feed eaten in 54 hours.

Sunday morning 12 brown, 2 green.

6 brown, 1 green.

2 brown, 1 brown cannibalized.

7 brown, 1 green.

swam again last night. that makes 3 miles in 3 days!

4 brown as of 11:30. End of the day there was a weird little green egg - about the size of a robin's egg but it was from an Araucauna. Strange.

Sunday 5 brown.
Swam usual mile on Sunday. Saw great show in SF Saturday night - Extra Action Marching Band. Will be seeing another new urban marching band in Portland on Friday night - March Fourth Marching band.

1 green, 7 brown + 1 brown cannibalized.

Swam usual routine.

3 brown.

1 green, 6 brown, + 1 brown cannibalized.

1 green, 3 brown

5 brown, 1 cannibalized brown.

6 brown, 1 green.

2 brown, 1 green, 1 brown cannibalized.
Going for swim now. Brewing pale ale today.

Brewing stout, nut brown ale and ESB this week too.

6 brown.

Swam usual mile. No cramps. 3 miles this week!

4 brown as of 11:30. Plus evidence of a cannibalized brown egg of unknown age (within a coupe of days - found as I was refilling feeder - shell was in the feed can - they've been laying some of their eggs there recently and I check it daily).

+2 brown, 1 green. so another 7 egg day.

2 brown, 1 green - 1 brown cannabilized as of 10:00.

+ 3 brown - makes another 7 egg day as of 3:00 PM.

2 brown

Swam usual 36 laps. No repeat laps.

So 17 eggs over 3 days.

7 brown, 1 green.

WTF?

Production is variable. Age of hens is a factor.

2 brown, 1 green as of 10:00 AM. + 4 brown! total of 7 eggs for the day

I'm going to start picking which old hens are for the stew pot this week. I think the golden sexlinks are the first to go, then a couple of rhode island reds. Want to have flock down to 8 hens by the time the chicks arrive, and will drop to just the 2 aracaunas when the new laying hens go into production.

I feel like home produced, slaughtered and butchered meat is wholesome, and more humane than meat from commercial production.

4 brown.

Swam. I think I swam lap 25 twice... kind of odd that I'm doing an extra lap.

2 brown as of 11:30. + 4 brown by 2:00.

Made an order for 8 Rhode Island Red and 4 Barred Rock chicks - all female, and 13 Cornish X meat birds - straight run. Will arrive week of April 21. This makes some travel scheduling mandatory as I can't have chicks arrive and be out of town. 25 new chicks - I'll need to determine how to keep them for the first 2 weeks - don't want to just put them with the existing flock as they'd be subject to abuse from the dominant hens and the ducks... This kind of gives me impetus to slaughter the ducks and a few stewing hens in the next few weeks.

Coq au vin, flemish chicken stew, duck sausage, ham & duck sausage gumbo coming soon. Yum Yum!

3 brown

3 brown as of 2:00 PM

Swam last night - may have done lap 11 twice - ie an extra lap.

2 brown. + 1 brown late.

hens are escaping into back yard through bottom of chicken wire fence - need to secure that... quite possible that they're laying somewhere i can't find the eggs.

I'll do that today and see if the egg count doesn't improve.

2 brown. New straw, big hen party scratching and moving straw around.

1 brown. They were given another very pointed lecture with repeated reference to the waiting stew pot.

1 brown.

Went for my usual swim.

1 brown.

I'm going to start telling them about the coming stewing hen slaughter, see if that doesn't get them producing again.

New straw should help on Monday.