Want to know more about the farmers, animals, and buildings on The Freckled Farm? Every Friday I will introduce you to another part of The Freckled Farm. This week you have a chance to get to know Topanga!
Topanga is a buff orpington, and she is desperate to be a momma, as orpingtons often are. We cannot keep this chicken from going broody. This means she sits in the nesting box all day trying to hatch eggs, none of which have been fertilized. I collect eggs multiple times a day and shoo her off the nest each time. When I am able to get her out of the coop she wanders around the yard puffed out and growling. I have thought about getting her eggs to hatch, but we currently don’t have room for more chickens.
When chickens go broody they stop laying eggs, which with Topanga is a good thing. We have never been able to get her to absorb calcium well, and her eggs have a tendency to be very thin. They always break in the nesting box, getting yoke all over the other eggs and straw. This is even after giving her oyster shells, yogurt, greens, and anything else we can find that contains calcium. None of the other chickens seem to have this problem, so we know it’s not the overall diet of the chickens.
Topanga is a beautiful bird and one of the more friendly chickens. She is one of the largest chickens we have and when she is all puffed out she looks monstrous compared to the other girls.
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