Farm Journal April 21, 2020

Farm Journal April 21, 2020. 

We have been having challenges with broken and dirty eggs. We know this is because the hens have been loitering in the nesting boxes after they lay. We had seen something a while back about curtaining the nesting boxes so it’s darker and the hens don’t want to hang out as long. Well yesterday I finally got around to putting some up and the difference today was amazing!! We had been losing 2-3dz eggs a day to breakage but today was only 5. Plus the eggs were so much cleaner. 

This was definitely worth doing and I wish we had gotten around to it sooner. Since it worked well in the hoophouse we are adding curtains to the nesting boxes in the pasture pens. The plan is the hens and first batch of meat birds will be moved out to pasture next week. We’re holding off a little bit as the weather next week looks less than Spring like.