Mean girl problems

We have a mean girl situation.  I was so proud of the girls for not pecking each other, and thought that we were in the clear.  We aren't.  In the past two weeks, we've noticed that two of the girls are getting picked on, and I'm quite disappointed in the flock.  I've had several anti-bullying conversations with them, but it doesn't seem to be working.  We've decided that for the winter, we're going to give them access to the run-in, which is adjacent to their yard, to try to prevent the pecking from escalating.  I feel like I'm failing a bit as a chicken mom, but I really don't know what else to do to get them to stop.  They have plenty of room and food, so I'm not sure what the issue is.  Maybe I just have bullies.

The lowest girl in the chicken hierarchy

The second most picked on girl

Despite the recent nosedive in chicken social behavior, egg production has increased.  On Saturday, we got a full dozen eggs!  Sunday brought 11 more, and today I haven't been able to fully collect yet because each time I've gone out, the nest boxes and tree have been occupied.  We had a house full of guests this weekend, and proudly served a delicious brunch on Sunday that featured scrambled eggs.  I think they were all impressed.  Fresh eggs really do taste incredibly different than store bought.

Not now, I'm laying

Waiting in line to lay...

More laying - clearly one of my more obedient chickens, in a nest box

Gorgeous blue eggs - check out the stripe on the right egg

Last Thursday I had to bring three dozen eggs into Mike's office because we were so inundated, and despite a weekend of cooking eggs for four guests, I still have about a dozen in the fridge, and I'm guessing 7 or 8 more in the coop.  If any of my readers are nearby and would like eggs, please let me know!

On the squash front, I am trying to make a concerted effort to use up all of the squash that we grew and bought before it goes bad, which is not easy given the amount of squash that I've accumulated.  We cut into our smaller candy roaster squash about two weeks ago, and I roasted, pureed and froze the flesh.  From the squash, we got about 7 cups of squash puree, so it was a good yield.  The candy roaster is a very wet squash, though, and I wasn't terribly impressed by its flavor and texture on its own, so I'll be using it up for baking.  So far, I've made a batch of squash rolls, and more decadently, a fantastic batch of squash pecan cinnamon buns.  We ate the cinnamon buns too quickly to take pictures, I'm afraid, but they'll be making a reappearance.

During our squash roasting weekend, Mike also took advantage of some downtime to brew up a batch of winter ale.  We now have two batches of beer fermenting, and two batches of cider fermenting for next year, so Mike is a very  happy guy.  The girls were very happy too, because Mike gave them the spent grains from the brewing process.  The girls were so excited about the grains that they came out of the coop, where they had already settled in for the night, to feast.  They even lapped up the water trickling out from the grains.  It seems that chickens approve wholeheartedly of home brewing.