You Know Why Women Were Born With the Ability to Have Multiple Orgasms?

WARNING: This post contains discussion about orgasms, menstrual periods, and menopause ....if you are uncomfortable talking (or reading) about such things, then close your browser window right now, because I need to rant.

You know why women were born with the ability to have multiple orgasms? 

...It's a trade-off for all the other hormone related crap we women have to endure throughout our lives. 

It starts with monthly bleeding that begins at about the age of 12 and continues well beyond our typical child bearing years.  It brings along its constant companions, cramping, crabby moods, and water retention.   Oh, and acne too!

Then there is morning sickness that we feel the first several months (and the last several months) of pregnancy.

Pregnancy might be considered one of the trade-offs as well, but I was happy to be pregnant, other than the morning sickness part.  It was the pain of giving birth that I felt was the trade-off.

And then after some 40 years of menstrual cycles we get to do it in reverse for another 2-10 years during peri-menopause.  This lovely time of our life is when we 'begin' to have memory loss, mood swings, grow random chin hairs, and our body loses it's ability to maintain proper lubrication...in every part of our body where it is truly needed. (If you are not there yet, I won't scare you with those details.)

Is it just me or does these reproductive organs look kind of scary?

We begin to suffer hot flashes and night sweats, Oh Joy!  How in the world did women of the 'olden days' survive without an adjustable thermostat they could turn up or down every hour (or quarter hour) as needed to keep from freezing to death or burning alive, for no apparent reason?  Oh, wait, they didn't live as long back then...maybe that was a good thing.

Just yesterday I woke up with my hands and fingers feeling like someone filled me up like a water balloon.  My pants that fit me fine the night before were so tight now that I could hardly breathe.  I found comfort in my loose fitting tan capri pants that I decide to wear out to lunch with the hubby.  Then an hour later I regretted not choosing my black ones, because I realize I've started my period while out to lunch.

Then this morning I wake up with a terrible hormonal migraine.  They come on every time my hormones make a drastic fluctuation...which is often these days, but almost always the day-of or day-after my period starts.  So here I sit here in the unlit rooms of our home, with no TV or radio playing, and the dogs are forbidden to bark.  I've even placed a post-it note outside the front door with a warning note threatening anyone who pushes that doorbell button.
  

About this time I'm thinking about this 'trade-off' we women were given.  And I'm thinking that the next time I'm feeling a wee bit selfish for enjoying myself too much while my poor husband only gets to reach 'the prize' once before the game is over...I'm gonna cash in on this 'trade-off' and just keep on 'having too much fun' until this poor old body of mine just crashes from exhaustion.

Keeper of 1 husband, 3 dogs, 
3 cats, and 17 Chickens!

Image Credits: The images in this post were courtesy of (in the order shown): FreeDigitalPhotos.net 1)  by luigi diamanti, 2) by dream designs, 3) by stockimages, and 4) by FrameAngel.

My 13 Week Old Barred Rock Cockerel is Fertile and Working It!

My 13 week old Barred Rock cockerel is fertile!!!  I have witnessed him mounting my laying hen recently and he appeared to be getting the job done, if you know what I mean.  He has been trying to mate with my pullets, who are also 13 weeks old, but they just run from him.  My laying hen Big Red, who is 8 months old and has been laying for a few months, knows what she is expected to do, so she stops and squats for him.

Barry my Barred Rock cockerel at almost 12 weeks old.

I asked around to the more experienced chicken keepers and everyone kept telling me that he couldn't be fertile at only 13 weeks.  Leigh (aka Bulldogma) from Natural Chicken Keeping blog said she wasn't sure if it was possible for him to me fertile at only 13 weeks, but did say that the general rule is that if he has the 'gymnastics' down, then he is probably fertile.  She has chickens about this same age so she wanted to know the answer to this question as well.  She suggested that I collect my hens eggs for the next week and check them for the fertile 'bullseye' when I cracked them for breakfast.

I collected Big Reds eggs for the next 4 days.  Two were double yokers (she drops about 50% double yokers), and two were single yoked eggs.  I cracked them open and examined the yokes...all six yokes had the BULLSEYE!  Which means that Barry is definitely fertile and successfully mating with my laying hen Big Red!  Woo Hoo this is so exciting.

I tried to take some pictures but only had my cell phone handy and they are just not clear enough to see the ring in the picture, however in real-life the rings are very visible.  You can go to Natural Chicken Keeping blog to see what fertile and infertile yokes look like.  She has some very good photos for comparison.

Now to answer the nay-sayers who will say...

• "You must be off on his age and he is older than you think." I am 100% positive of his hatch date of April 16, 2013, which made him exactly 13 weeks of age when I witnessed him mating with my laying hen Big Red.  

• "You must have only thought it looked like a 'bullseye' on the yoke." I could clearly see the dot in the middle and the ring around that dot.  It was visible on all four of her eggs (6 yokes due to 2 double yokers).  I even cracked a few store-bought eggs and they only had the single dot.

• "You must have another rooster that is mating with her." Nope, I have Big Red my only laying hen, and all of my other chickens were from the same incubator hatch as Barry, all born on the same day.  He is the only rooster in the bunch.

To further test my accuracy on the fertility, I placed one of Big Reds eggs in the incubator that I already had running with some shipped eggs.  I candled the egg on Day 3 and saw an air pocket and veins.  I candled the egg again on Day 6 and I saw a 'growing' air pocket along with a little chicken embryo and movement!
 

Interestingly Barry has yet to crow in the morning...not even attempted to yet.  Guess he doesn't feel the need to boast about his man-hood when he is hatching out chicks with my laying hen.  I will keep you posted on the status of my growing little chick in the incubator.  She is due to hatch on August 8th.


  Keeper of 1 husband, 2 grandkids, 2 dogs,
3 cats, and various Chickens!

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Official Egg Count for our Flock

This page will be the Official Egg Count Page for our Flock.  I thought it would be fun (and informative) to keep track of how many eggs our flock produces in a year.  So this page will be where I keep my egg collection stats.  I will update it at least weekly, noting any interesting changes that occurred in that week as I go.  As we begin I have 7 chicks that are not laying and 1 hen that just started laying in May, (but she did not come to us until June 3rd).   I will post my updates in reverse order with the most recent at the top (like blog posts are listed, newest first).

Total Eggs Laid This Year (2014):  ** XX **  [Lost track near the end of 2013, so I stopped recording the count. ] 

 

For the week ending Thursday, August 1st. We got 0 eggs so far this week.

• Skipped a day of laying on Friday.  First missed day in over 2 weeks.

Week ending Thursday, July 25th. We got 7 eggs so far this week.

• Last week I witnessed my 13 week old Barred Rock cockerel mating (or so it appeared) several times with my laying hen Big Red.  I will be checking her eggs for fertility this week, just out of curiosity as to whether or not he is old enough to be fertile already. 
• All eggs were verified as fertile upon inspection of the yokes, even the double yokers were fertile.  I placed one of her eggs in the incubator and candling on day 6 showed a live chicken embryo doing well inside!  See the full post about this here. 
• Interesting that since a few days after mating with Barry, Big Red has been laying full-sized, single yoke eggs.  All of which have been fertile so far.

Week ending Thursday, 18th of July! We got 7 eggs this week!

• It seems that Big Red has calmed down now with no more moving around because she is laying beautiful eggs every day, many of them were double Yorkers too.  She must be kicking out the eggs in overdrive.  
• She has also been back on fermented feed steady for two weeks now since we returned from evacuation.

Week ending Thursday, 11th of July! We got 4 eggs this week.

• We returned from evacuation on Thursday night and Big Red laid a huge (double-yoker) egg early Friday evening.
• Sunday morning Big Red laid another huge egg.  I wonder how long she will be laying double-yokers?  I am not complaining, just curious.  
• I am surprised we got 4 eggs this week after the 'Weird Egg Laying' event.  She laid another shell-less egg the next evening and then laid two thin, but whole eggs the next two days.  I guess she just had a bit of lingering stress from all the moving around and small quarters during the evacuation.  She seems to be back to normal.  Hope her eggs thicken back up as this next week progresses.

Week ending Thursday, 4th of July! We had 3 eggs.

• The first egg this week was huge!  I bet it is a double-yoker.  Will know soon when we have it for breakfast. 
• Saturday's egg was not viable...totally my fault too :-/  You see, Friday we had late afternoon monsoon rains that cooled us down from 101 to the upper 80's outside.  So I made the bad decision to turn the A/C unit off in the coop.  It obviously wasn't going to come on til the next day mid-morning so why leave it on I thought.  Well, Saturday morning I forgot to turn it back on.  So when Big Red went inside to lay her egg, it was well over 100 in the coop.  Pour girl tried to stay in there and lay her egg but it was so hot she could not sit in the nest box so she must have been pacing inside the coop totally stressed by the heat.  She finally laid an egg and it was so thin-shelled that it broke when she dropped it on the floor of the coop.  I feel so bad for her, she really needs to spend about an hour just relaxing in the next box in a cool room, then she lays beautiful eggs.
• Despite the stress of being evacuated, and living in a temporary dog kennel without a coop or nest box, Big Red laid a beautiful brown egg this evening.  She laid it right on the ground while my daughter and granddaughter looked on.  My granddaughter cheerfully collected the egg and she even remembered to thank Big Red for giving us this egg today.

Week ending Thursday, June 27th.  We had 4 eggs this week, and the grandkids got to collect it.  They were thrilled.  My grandson asked if it was real, lol.  I said yes it is and you can have it for breakfast tomorrow!

• Interesting that on the one day this week that I was away for 24 hours, and therefore did not visit the chickens all day, I found an egg on the floor of the coop that looked like a shell-less egg, but there was a very thin half of a shell on it.  The egg was intact even without the shell. I wonder if Big Red stressed about me not visiting them throughout the day? 
• We got another thin, broken egg on the coop floor at the end of this week.   She didn't lay the day before so perhaps she was holding this one over night.  Looks like she laid it from the roost, which aided in is breaking when it hit the floor (deep litter can only do so much cushioning).

Week ending Thursday, June 20th. We had 2 eggs with a nice shells. (Only three days since last count)

• I do believe that Big Red is loving her air conditioned coop because we've had 2 perfect eggs since it was installed.  She can now go inside and take her time laying her egg without cooking her brain in their.   I also installed some 'cool' hippie curtains over the nest boxes.  She likes them :-)
• We haven't had a single thin or broken egg this week, and no eggs without shells either.  I've been pumping up the calcium treats this week.  That combined with the cooler coop because of the air conditioner may be having a positive effect.

Week ending Monday June 17th, this week we got 2 good eggs from Big Red

• She did lay 2 others but they had very thin shells, and 1 other had no shell at all.  I think the heat was bothering her inside the coop.
• Interesting side note: we ate her first 5 eggs this week and 3 of the 5 were double yolked.

Week ending Monday June 10th, we had had 4 viable eggs

• Big Red laid 6 eggs but 4 of them broke immediately because of soft-shell, which I think we might have fixed, but it may continue a little longer just because she is a new layer.  

Beginning June 4th, 2013 we got our first egg from Big Red.

Keeper of 1 husband, 2 grandkids, 3 dogs,
3 cats, and 17 Chickens!

 

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