When I went out this morning, Guenevere was in my back yard!  She politely followed me to the coop and was pretty easy to catch; a neighborhood cat slunk away.  Clearly Gwyn had had quite a fine time and managed to avoid harm.  There was lots of poop on top of the coop roof (smart - it's too slippery for cats) and I found several dust bath-type indentations in the new mulch.  I did a better job of blocking the space under the wire, so hopefully that'll take care of it.  Hopefully no damage was done to nearby gardens - at least my peas seemed unharmed.

OK, those photos settle it!  Marie Antoinette has a bit of black in her tail feathers; Betty Bob does not.

I asked for a Muir Commons Chicken Blog, and Lis did it!  Thanks, Lis!

I was thinking of sharing MC stories - maybe not just about chickens, but they were my inspiration.  Not-quite-two-year-old grandson Orion LOVES those girls.  He has taken to chanting "Grammy, Grandpa Ray, chickens" over and over, trying to get his folks to bring him over.  He calls each chicken by name, and when he's listing people he loves, he includes "I love Lulu, I love Mimi, I love Martha Muffin, I love Betty Bob...."

The other day we went inside the chicken coop (much to his dad's dismay when he saw the bottoms of Orion's shoes).  We hugged chickens (gently).  Lulu seemed especially blase about it.  Over and over, he'd look at me with wonder and delight and say "in the chicken coop!"

Yesterday he was into looking for eggs.  We found one in the nest and he carefully with both hands carried it home to show Grandpa Ray.  Then we scrambled it and he ate it.  This was the first time he'd made the connection that you can both gather and eat those eggs!  At first he'd thought they were for the chickens to eat.  Later in the afternoon we repeated the whole routine - I guess he got his protein for the day while enjoying 2/3 of my next egg allotment.

Jane

check your doorstep

Because, sadly, I can be relied on *only* to forget to email when I've delivered eggs to your door.  Our current system of delivering eggs to MCers is thus:  we keep a list of everyone who's said they want eggs, and we do three-egg deliveries to those households whenever we have multiples of three to deliver.  We write the date of deliveries on our little list as we go, and that is what determines who gets the next delivery (whoever has a farthest-in-the-past date).  It works.

Today I found Lulu in the coop, and it was nice to have eyewitness proof that she lays.  I believe she's the one who lays (quite reliably) the blue eggs, and there she was!  The other girls don't seem to bother her quite so much these days-- I spied her and Marie Antoinette eating without quarrel from the same pile of old oatmeal, veggie scraps and rinds.

Egg count: 3
Deliveries: our house, Curtiss', Lynn & Chuck's.
Notes:  Only one five-egg day this week.  Three seems to be the new five.
BTW:  The girls!  Check their names and pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollysdays/sets/72157627881372746/with/6239434990/

frozen eggs

Lulu held her own today!  I tossed the girls some cinnamon toast leftovers (thank you, Laurensons)... Lulu grabbed a small chunk and, without looking back, trotted steadily off to the far end of the run.  Not one of the other girls followed her; they seemed content to peck on what I'd left by the water.  

Here's the Chicken Conundrum of the Day: Do eggs freeze?  There were icicles dripping from trees on Tuesday morning.  Should we worry about the eggs we move to the southeast compartment?  The deliveries I made today contained eggs that overnighted there, during the freeze. 

Egg Count: 3

Deliveries: Ann, Bill/Kate, the Bocks

Notes:  Mimi seems to be brooding.  I tried to budge her, but she kept going back to sit on those wood shavings this morning.  Holly found her that way yesterday, sitting on three eggs.

Lis

p.s. This is the inaugural post!  Let me know what you think, Chicken Committee, and please CHANGE ANYTHING YOU SEE FIT, including the header, photo, blog description, etc.  This is a group blog.