The Chicken Pen
At Redwood Hill Farm, we have a small home chicken flock.
We have Americanas who lay green/blue eggs. Their main distinction from the other chickens is the feathers on their cheeks. Over the years, they have become our favorite breed as they tend to be friendly and loving. Cream Legbars are another egg-laying breed. They lay blue eggs. They have a feathery poof on the top of their head. Cream Legbars are a heritage breed. This breed does not lay as many eggs as the others. However, they produce eggs longer than the other breeds that have a beautiful blue to a green hue.
Like all the goats on our free-range farm, our hens have names too!
Some of the names are Lemon Cookie, Chocolate Chip, Midnight, and Boba.
During the Covid pandemic, baby chicks were difficult to buy at the feed store. As an experiment, we took 10 eggs and put them under a broody hen. A broody hen does not produce eggs but wants to lay on the eggs to hatch them. Out of the 10 eggs, 2 hatched about 20 days after we put them under the hen, they are pictured to the right with Colton.
Greens are an important source of nutrition for the chickens.
Because we have natural predators, we bring all the greens to the coop instead of allowing them to free-range. Their favorite vegetable is kale which we grow in our gardens. After harvesting our vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli, the rest of the plant gets fed to the chickens. Sunflowers in the field that were not harvested for our bouquets are ripened and the seeds fed to the chickens. One of their favorite treats is the flies from our homemade fly traps that keep our farm seemingly fly free. The chickens are fed locally made, organic grain so they get a balanced ratio of nutrients. On very special occasions, they are fed Redwood Hill Farm goat milk yogurt.
Our chickens provide nutritious eggs for the farm family. We think our eggs are truly egg-cellent!
