The Almost Weekly Egg Report

Spring is very gradually springing here at New Elm Farm. Just noticed buds on some daffodils and forsythia yesterday. Have been hanging laundry on the line again. The turkey hen has laid many eggs - fourteen at the last count - and we are hoping some of them actually hatch. We have eighty-five baby chicks that arrived via the post office in the last ten days - 50 are meat birds, 15 are Buff Orpington layer hens and 20 are turkeys. They are all staying warm in the heated garage until they get feathered out (four weeks), then it's outside onto the pasture. We are hoping to get the sheep shorn soon - as soon as the sheep shearer responds to my telephone calls.

Yesterday there was an interesting encounter. Three wild turkeys were on the far side of the lower pasture in front of the house. Gradually they came closer and closer until they were face to face (beak to beak) with our roving flock of ducks, geese and turkeys. Our one male turkey got all fanned out as did the wild one - quite a sight! Then they started jumping up and down, flapping their wings and bumping one another - a male testoserone, dominance, territorial thing, of course. The wild one was bigger to begin with, and he proved to be the stronger. Before too long, our turkey kept falling down after his jumps, being all tuckered out and such. He just didn't have the stamina of the wild one who has a much harder, more demanding life. But things didn't turn ugly or violent. When our Tom got tired, the wild one mosied over to our turkey hen to see if she was interested. She wasn't, so he slowly moved off with his own two hens to the other side of the field and that was that. The hens' pens were all wet and mucky for a couple of weeks, so I let them go completely free range. They loved it, going further and further afield.

Egg production remained at a meager five or six a day. So I am quite sure they were laying eggs in some hidden spot in the woods. Once things dried out a bit, I put them back into their pens. The next couple of days there were nine and ten eggs. I can tell they are not quite as happy, that they are sad about their liberty being curtailed. As a compromise, some days I will let them out for the last couple hours before dusk after most of their egg laying is done. The ducks have been laying 5 to 6 eggs per day, and I get some big goose eggs every so often. We painted a few of those on Easter. The rest I will save for next year. Blessings on this blossoming time of year