As the weather turns (much) colder, the chickens are eating far more. It took them ages to get through their first 20kg bag of layers’ pellets, but they’ve eaten this second sack in double-quick time.
That throws all of our egg price calculations out of the coop. We had worked them out at about 5p each, and while they’ve not doubled and are still cheaper than the supermarket by an order of magnitude, they’re probably 30% more expensive than they were in the summer. Even in the chicken world there’s inflation.
Perhaps it’s the cold that makes them eat more as they burn more fat to keep warm. Either way it’s causing Gerry to put on weight. She matches Barbara and Margot pretty much inch for inch now, yet when we got them she was the runt of the litter.
Her wattles are bigger, her comb a little more obvious, and her legs are now more yellow than they were before. We still don’t know whether she’s pulling her weight in the egg-laying stakes, but these are all good signs.
Margot is changing, too. She’s far more forward than she was when we first brought her home. Back then she would run under the coop when we opened the door of her run, and make sure she was well out of reach if you tried to pick her up. Now, though, she’s the first at the gate, pushing the other two out of the way, and every morning as I open the nesting box door to check for eggs it’s her head that looks through the pop hole to see what’s going on.
Only Barbara – dependable, hard working Barbara who has laid most of our eggs – hasn’t changed since she arrived. She’s got an assured air about her, confident in her place as queen of the coop, and happy to let the other two bustle for attention.
This is our fourth month with the chooks, and in the time that we’ve had them they’ve changed more than I ever imagined they could.
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