Poultry part 2

The hens have started picking up their laying again! I don't know if we blogged about it, but sometime in late summer they just decided that they wanted to stop laying. Out of 20 hens, we dropped down to 2 eggs a day. Now, I do know that hens are photosensitive and all that stuff, but we've had chickens for a few years and they had never slowed down that much. It was obvious that they had avian pox at the time, so we scrapped it up to the virus and assumed they'd pick up again sooner or later. Well, September came and went, as did October and November and we were still only getting 2 eggs a day at best. In November we slaughtered the turkeys and just before our farm counterparts left for their vacay we were discussing options for our ridiculously expensive yet non-productive laying flock. As much as we didn't want to think about it, I think we were almost resolved to culling and starting over in the spring. At least I was. Now, low and behold, mysteriously only 1 month after we slaughtered those darn turkeys, the flock is starting to pick up pace. It's the dead of winter and we just had the shortest day of the year, so I am throwing out the photosensitivity excuse. I think it was those big, mean, food hog turkeys! My two cents, I guess we'll never know for sure. The only thing I DO know for sure is that we got 5 eggs yesterday and 4 each day the two days prior. More than we've averaged in a long time. I can finally plan on making a quiche for dinner this week!