I'm back AND there was an egg in that coop!

It's been a few days since the last posting and since Huffy got her new coop. 

I just got internet back.

After four days.

I lost count of how many times I went to check the weather (had to figure out which channel was the weather channel on the TV); at least a dozen times I went to go on Pinterest to gather ideas for our new landscaping (had to pull out old Southern and Country Living magazines instead); and I shot a lot of photos with my camera to share on Facebook or here and realized I couldn't send or upload them.

I knew I was addicted to being connected but I really didn't realize just how much until I was forced to live my life without that connection.  I have no issue while camping or cruising with being cut off from doing the things I usually do, but wow, was this an eye opener.  Anyway, life went on…

Huffy spent her first few nights in her new coop and finally today, I gathered my first egg from a

coop since the storm totally disrupted our lives.  What a good feeling that was.  For almost a year now, unless we knew that Huffy had just laid an egg we would find somewhere in the yard, we didn't eat it.  

We know all about the "float" testing but even when we did that, we just couldn't bring ourselves to eat an egg unless we knew it was freshly laid.  Don't know why we are that way, but we are.  Can't fight it.  Our dogs have quite beautiful coats from all the eggs they've been either finding outside or have been getting in their meals.  Again, what a good feeling it was to get that egg this morning..although I'm sure the dogs will miss their eggs…

Tomorrow night, we will be bringing home a hen from some friends of ours who are willing to share one of their girls so that Huffy will no longer be alone.  I struggled with what to do about her loneliness for a very long time…with the chaos we have lived with I just couldn't make a decision until recently.  

After doing some research about all the different ways to bring in new girls, I realized that I wasn't up for raising chicks at the moment (I've just gotten Huffy out of our mudroom and couldn't bear the thought of dealing with the mess of chicks for the next 8 weeks).  

Bringing in fertilized eggs for her to brood was not a surefire way to go either since a) she might refuse to brood and we'd have to incubate them ourselves - something we are not set up to do and b)  up to 50% of the clutch would likely be roosters and I don't want to deal with rehoming or culling roosters again any time soon.

Bringing in more than one hen could lead to Huffy being the low hen in the future pecking order and since she's my girl that ain't happening!  Which left us two choices - allow Huffy to lead out her life as a lone chicken in that coop or bring in a single hen who would bond with her out of her own loneliness.  This option will apparently allow us to build our flock later because these two would always have that bond limiting the chance that any other group of hens would pick on them (there is safety in numbers in the chicken pecking order!). 

Anyway, the idea is to get through this year with just the two girls and then next year bring in some chicks and have a group of hens again…and maybe adopt a rooster.