About two weeks ago, we gave away nearly two thirds of our hens. Let me just say, nineteen hens lay more eggs in a week than we eat in a month. The only way we could possibly keep up is if we were doing lots of farming or lumberjacking and using only non-powered hand tools to do it. Plus, November was approaching and 20 chickens make a lot of manure. Never mind that they eat a heck of a lot of feed.

So, we gave away 12 laying hens, keeping Lucy, who's now four years old and laying one egg every three days or so, ChewBeet, the gorgeous araucana rooster, and seven araucana hens. If we want to have more chickens, we can incubate the eggs.

So the coop is a lot easier to keep clean now, with a lot less poo and a lot fewer birds messing about. I took out one of the roosts and moved the feed bins inside the coop. This will keep them secure from racoons and free up some space on the pad.

Every night, I take the dogs down to the coop to see if there are rats. The rat colony had been thriving and, a month ago, the rats had been so numerous they'd been blocking the light along the top of the walls. Ugh. But Esme and Dagmar figured out that the chicken coop is a fun place to go, because when you go to the chicken coop you can chase rats. The rat population went into steep decline, and last week I only saw one rat all week.

Rats breed quickly, and last night there were three rats in the coop. Two got away, but Esme got the big one. Good dog!