This is a photo I took of our eldest rooster, Rutger, a Blue-laced Red Wyandotte, with his three Silver-laced Red Wyandotte hens, taken some time last year.
Unfortunately, at some point this late winter, one of the three hens turned up missing . . . no sign, no feathers, clearly no predator had breached the poultry enclosure . . . she was simply gone, like one of our original three Muscovy hens, before her.
Damn.
And then, a couple of months ago, I found one of our three Swedish Svart Hona roosters, with his neck entangled in some fishing line hanging down from the netting we have covering the top of the enclosure . . . my guess is that one of the older roosters, most likely Rutger, was chasing him, and he garotted himself, albeit accidentally.
Double damn. I've since tightened all the fishing line supporting the netting so that it cannot happen again.
He was a really nice rooster. ALL the Svart Honas are really nice roosters, as (usually) is the Swedish Flower rooster. As chickens go, they are all relatively calm and laid back.
Rutger himself, although usually calm, can get really pushy at mealtimes, and I've found myself informing him, more than once, that if he EVER spurs me, he'll be soup. No exception.
And the Swedish Flower rooster once got seriously bratty with me, and at one point came at me with all his claws displayed, whereupon I told him, too, that he will NOT win, that I WILL win, and that if he EVER hurts me, he's soup.
I will NOT tolerate a mean rooster. Ever.
And, thus far, the "talks" I've had with my roosters have worked . . . neither roo has seriously challenged me again, because although they undoubtedly didn't understand my words, I have NO doubt that they understood my intent. Fully.
I fully intend them ALL to live long and productive lives. But if they hurt me, or anyone else, they're done.
I'm going out of my way to bring friendly chickens onto our place, and any rooster that turns out to be otherwise, will be immediately removed from our breeding stock. That day. Or, in other words, soup.
So, in any case, our flock of fourteen is now down to twelve, and we are seriously rooster-heavy, as we have Rutger, the two remaining Svart Hona roosters, the Swedish Flower rooster, and the little mixed breed Wyandotte roo that we hatched last year.
Rutger is definitely his dad, but I don't know if mom was one of the Silver-laced Red Wyandotte hens, or one of their Blue-laced Wyandotte with Silver-laced Wyandotte cross daughters.
So that's five roosters, for five chicken hens . . . which means we seriously need more hens, although we do also have our two remaining Muscovy ducks, but I've never seen any of our roos trying to breed our ducks, and I strongly suspect that our ducks would seriously kick their butts if they tried.
Our chicken hens for now include our two remaining Silver-laced Wyandotte hens, their two Silver-laced and Blue-laced cross daughters, and the Swedish flower hen. We have no Svart Hona hens as yet, but I hope to get several in the next few weeks.
And, interestingly, the woman from whom I got the Swedish flower chickens, and the Svart Honas, told me that of all her chickens, even though the Swedish landrace chickens are smaller breeds by far, that her Swedish flower chickens always gave her the biggest eggs. Interesting.
At this point, we're averaging three eggs a day from five hens, not counting the ducks. The ducks blow hot and cold . . . we got about a dozen from them in less than a week, and then nothing for the past several days. They laid off and on last year as well. Whatever.
But the chickens have been consistent enough that we had to start using the eggs, since I don't yet have an incubator, so while Marek was home a couple of weeks ago, we made several batches of Advocaat, aka Eier Cognac, which is a kind of European egg custard liqueur, which sounds a tad bizarre, but is actually quite delicious.
I did one batch with just the duck eggs, since they tend to be richer than the chicken eggs, and I therefore wanted to keep them separate. I flavored it with cacao powder, and ultimately added more cacao before I was done, as I was overly conservative in the beginning and it just needed more.
And, as it has in the past, the advocaat made with duck eggs turned out great.
Then we did a couple of batches with chicken eggs, and we flavored the first batch with lemon essential oil (I was concerned that, if we used lemon juice, it might curdle the eggs), which turned out wonderful. Then we did a second batch just with vanilla extract, as usual, which is the more traditional Advocaat.
So now Marek's favorite is the lemon Advocaat, and mine is the cacao. Which is likely to change almost immediately, as we continue trying new things, and new flavors.
In any case, we've still got at least five dozen eggs in the fridge, along with a couple dozen sitting on the kitchen counter, so since it takes about a dozen chicken eggs to make about 750 ml of Advocaat, I'll be making a LOT more in the weeks and months to come.
It's wonderful stuff, and highly nutritious, and was traditionally given to guests when they came to visit, particularly for the ladies. The men, as a general rule, were not surprisingly more into straight vodka.
Meanwhile, I purposefully left fourteen eggs in the nest, in early April, beginning on the 5th, hoping that our ducks and/or chickens would incubate and hatch them.
But as we're over a month now, I'm guessing that they won't hatch; another damn.
And, as happened last year, we went from fourteen eggs down to twelve, to ten, and currently to nine, with ZERO shell fragments, and no sign of any of the missing eggs.
And, clearly, no predators have breached the enclosure. Weird.
So as always, life is wonderful, and getting better, better, and better. Thanks for accompanying me on the journey. I love you all.
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