Divisive

You know, we could talk about the State Of The Union address today, if we wanted to pick something divisive which would guarantee to ruffle a few feathers, so to speak. There would be questions...did you turn it into a drinking game, where you had to drink every time The President said a particular word? If you chose the word "millions," then you are probably reading this from your hospital bed where you're recovering from alcohol poisoning.

But instead, let's talk about another divisive topic: artificial lighting in your hens' coop. I've always been of the opinion that hens' bodies need a rest from reproductive activities, the same way our own do. The fact that nature builds this into their programming adds to the credibility of this. There are always a few months, usually in the autumn, when you won't get any eggs from your flock (usually when they are molting).

But in general, this issue usually resolves in time for you to have eggs on Christmas morning. Except if you live here, and except if you've had our psychotic weather (time and temperature check: February 1, 1:32 pm and about 80 freaking degrees...yet still heading down into a hard-ish freeze at night)  I stopped getting eggs last September and while I did pick up a dozen or so between Thanksgiving and Christmas (still not a lot) by about mid-December there were no eggs again, any day, from anyone. And all five girls were healthy and two are less than a year old, so in their laying prime. But for those of you keeping track: Four months produced 12 eggs.

And so about two weeks ago I broke down and put a light inside the henhouse, which comes on at 4:00 am every morning and stays on until it's daylight. This simulates the longer days that makes hens start laying once again. I wasn't sure if it would help, but this was my take this morning...four beautiful eggs, on top of getting at least one a day for the last week or so. I'm back to having a dozen in the fridge, and it feels wonderful to be able to count on having them on hand for omelettes at dinner and other recipes which require them.

As for the bio-ethics of fooling my girls into laying again, I'm still not sure if it's the right thing to do, but it's been a strange year and strange years sometimes require we adopt practices we wouldn't have approved of before. I hope this is the only year I'll have to do it.