My Star Roosters

I currently have 8 roosters. That is about 3 too many.  I need to weigh them to see which I want to keep.

There is one Rhode Island Red, 2 Partridge Plymouth Rocks and 5 White Plymouth Rocks.  The Partridge Rocks are the best looking. The Rhode Island Red is at the top of the pecking order as far as I can tell. I can barely tell the white ones apart. There is one that took longer to develop than the others. At first I thought that was not a good thing. Then I read about the Jersey Giant chicken. They are a meat bird that take a long time to develop. The benefit is that the roosters meat does not get tough as fast as other breeds do. If I can get a strain of White Plymouth Rocks that is slow to develop, they would make a really nice meat birds. 

 Partridge Plymouth Rock

 Rhode Island Red

 White Plymouth Rock

Lots and Lots of Fresh Eggs

Our Egg output has increase substantially. Our record so far is 26 in one day. The rate decreases with lower temperatures in winter and with the higher temperatures in summer.  We are getting a nice spectrum of colors as well. We sell eggs to those we go to church with and I also sell them at work.  I have often been asked what makes fresh home raised chicken eggs different from store bought eggs.  I reply that it is the same difference between a garden fresh tomato compared to a store bought tomato. There is really no comparison. The store bought tomato is the idea of a tomato. It looks like a tomato but it does not taste like a tomato nor does it smell like one. This is the same principle with a fresh egg that you get from your own chickens. Each one is different depending on what that chicken ate during the time that egg was developing. My chickens have the opportunity to forage for bugs, eat plants and dig for worms.  Store bought eggs on the other hand are from chickens that spend their whole life in a small cage eating only chicken feed. No sunlight, no bugs, no worms. All of those natural things that make an egg taste like an egg are absent. So all you are left with is man’s manipulated egg. Mass produced, lacking taste and character.