Chickens Suit

"The idea for suiting a chicken came in a dream. A dream of a chicken that was covered with hair instead of feathers. Well, you can't take a chicken's feathers off and then glue hair on it - can you? This is how the chickenssuit came about."

Chicken Saga IV

We are coming up on egg laying time. According to the McMurray Hatchery, they could lay as early as August. We still need to make nest boxes, otherwise we're likely to have to go on an egg hunt every day.

McMurray Hatchery Information and Frequently Asked Questions

• Most hens will start laying between 5-7 months of age. They will lay best at 1 to 2 years of age. All pullets (female chicken under 1 year of age) lay small eggs at first and after a while will lay larger eggs. Younger hens will lay 1 egg every 3-4 days. A hen 30 weeks old can lay 2 eggs every 3 days. Some have been known to lay an egg a day. All breeds have different laying abilities.


• By nature, hens like dark out of the way places for laying eggs. The nest you provide can encourage them to lay where you can get at the eggs for collection. Nest boxes for heavy breeds should be about 14" wide by 14" high by 12" deep. Allow one nest for every 4 to 5 hens. Nesting boxes can be purchased. Nests should be 18 to 20 inches off he ground.


• A fresh egg contains little air so it will sink. An older egg will float. Also, if you break open a fresh egg into a dish, the white is compact and firmly holds the yolk up. In an old egg the white is runny and the yolk will flatten out.

Chicken Saga III

Mac, Babs, and Rocky

A view of our front yard.

We pruned up the two trees so they don't look like lumps of green any more. They are growing fast, the jacaranda in particular.

Chicken Saga II

Our chicken coop, enclosed in a portion of our (future) garden. The roof is a work in progress. The rabbit hutch will house some silkie chicks we are acquiring. Our hope was a queen's wreath vine would grow up the trellis, but the hens keep eating the tender shoots, so it isn't getting much bigger.

New Planting Bed

This is where the shed used to sit. Moving it really changed the feel and look of the yard. There is a lot more usable space, even tho' the shed is only 8'x10'. The yard feels much larger. Yesterday we planted some plants we scrounged from mom-in-law: begonias, gardenia, some kind of ground cover. The irises came from my late mother's iris patch. Her patch is almost as old as me. That's a spider plant coming out of the toilet basin. Some kind of viny succulent in the tank. The border is made up of bits of concrete curb we broke up from another part of our yard. All in keeping with our theme of "artistic reuse and recycling"

No more ugly gate!

This is a shot of the planting bed we are building next to our carport. We moved the shed into the open gates. That was a real treat - HEAVY!! We had to take the walls and roof off of the base, move them, then reassemble. We are going to be putting shrubs and annuals in here. The shrubs you see are rose bushes surrounded by garlic and onions to ward off pests.