Moulting feathers

Two poor birds are moulting their feathers right now. Fancypants Johnson (pictured) started a few weeks ago. It's a cyclical thing -- they moult about once a year and stop laying eggs during that time. It's supposed to take a month or so for them to grow back. You can see the new shafts coming in on Fancypants. Looks itchy! Their roosting area is filling up with feathers and they've brought some of the big ones into the nest.

About washing eggs

In a previous post, I mentioned that we don't wash or refrigerate the eggs from our backyard chickens. People occasionally express concern, so here's a recent article about how eggs are naturally protected from bacteria, etc.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129472951