Nine months (with chickens)!

So the chickens are nine months old today, and tomorrow they will have been with us for 3/4 of a year.  My...how time flies. 

Anyway, nine months.  I was all set to tell y'all about how there hadn't been any changes, that Toasty Crunch was still laying just about every day, but the others were still not laying.  But then on Wednesday when I went out to check on the girls, I found two eggs waiting for me in the nest box!  Whoohoo!  And then it happened again on Thursday!  Double whoohoo!  That means that two of the girls are laying now.  The extra egg looks like a Rocky egg, but since I didn't catch her in the act, it could be Esther's.  Esther performed a submissive squat for Bubby a couple of weeks ago, so she's ready or close to ready and Easter eggers can lay light brown or pink eggs.  I'm hoping it was Rocky, though, because I'm still holding out hope for blue eggs from Esther in our egg basket.

This is my path through the flower bed to get to the chicken coop.

I also found a frozen dead mole in the run when I went out to check on the girls on Wednesday.  This is the second one I've found.  I scooped it up with a shovel and flung it in the deep snow behind the barn.  We might have quite the scene of carnage over there when the snow melts...

I don't know if the moles are freezing to death, or starving to death, or thirsting to death, or if the chickens are killing them.  About a week before I found the first one, I saw Toasty running around with something in her mouth, and Rocky was chasing her, but I couldn't tell what it was.  Upon reflection, it was the right color and size to be a mole.  Eeew.  The dead ones that I've found haven't been pecked over, so if the girls are killing them, they've decided they don't like the taste.  Or maybe it's a texture thing?

When it comes right down to it, I don't care how they're dying.  I do wonder how they're getting in though, considering we put considerable effort into predator "proofing" the coop, including laying down hardware cloth to prevent burrowing creatures from entering.

 Throwback to when the girls were new:

Esther.  So fluffy!

Toasty Crunch

Rocky

They used to all fit in this box.  Now, we wouldn't even be able to fit one.