Chicken Update 1/5/13 First egg!

 We got our first egg!  Bigger than I thought we'd get for the first one.  I'm thinking it was from one of the Rhode Island reds.

 It was delicious, I had it over easy on some toast.

I cleaned out the coop today.  Carted about 10 wheelbarrow loads to the compost.  There was some pretty strong ammonia odor when I turned the pile, but it dissipated after a couple of hours.

I'm not sure if they were finding bugs or old bits of grain, but the chickens really loved scratching through the small bits of material left behind after the clean out.

The 3 tine cultivator is the perfect tool for fluffing up and mixing the matted layers of material.

And a hay fork for loading it into the wheelbarrow.

The two wheeled wheelbarrow is a lot more stable and generally easy to use than the typical single wheeled variety.

So I got my exercise for the day.  Tomorrow, I will be building nest boxes and rearranging the roost setup.  I also plan to cover the door in plastic to cut down on wind penetration as the roosters are getting some frostbite on their combs.