by Jennifer Burcke

When I wrote my last post regarding the Purina 60 Day See the Difference Challenge FLIP Camera Giveaway, I had no idea just how many of you would enter for a chance to win! Over 90 readers entered for a chance to win a FLIP camera.

Last Monday, we assigned each entry a random number and placed them into our egg collecting basket. I would have preferred to fill the basket with eggs collected fresh from our coop, but our hens seem to be in a never ending period of molt, so it has been empty far too often. It seemed cathartic to fill it with something so positive, and the entries seemed like just the thing. For a few moments, the basket was happily filled to the brim instead of sitting empty as a constant reminder of our decreased egg production.

After shuffling the entries sufficiently, my two favorite young farmers dug deep into the basket and chose our random winner, number 25. We scanned through our list of entrants and found that our lucky winner was Deborah from Mendocino, California.

Before the night was through, Deborah had been announced as our winner on our Facebook page and on Twitter. Posting our daily update was nothing new as I do it every evening to share our farm harvest for the day. I will admit that it was a welcome relief to be able to post something other than our continuing tale of molting woe and empty egg baskets that evening.

By now, the Purina 60 Day See the Difference Challenge FLIP Camera is on its way to Mendocino. I have found myself using our FLIP camera to document all of the animals living here at 1840 Farm. It has proven to be an incredible tool for sharing videos of our first goat kids as they grow bigger and stronger every day. I hope that Deborah will be able to use it to share videos of her hens with the rest of us.

Congratulations again to Deborah for being selected as our winner. Thank you to all who entered and to Purina for providing such a wonderful FLIP camera to share with our winner. A special thanks to all who left me such incredibly kind comments. I felt like a lucky winner each time I read your words and learned more about you and your chicken keeping experiences.

This morning, I’m off to tend to our hens. It’s time for their morning oatmeal dressed with kefir to add a little extra protein. While I know that molting will have to run its course, I’m doing all I can to help them get back to providing our farm with fresh eggs. I’ll happily let you know when the day comes that our egg collecting basket is full of eggs again.

In the meantime, I have another opportunity for a lucky reader to win a tool for their chicken keeping toolbox. All who enter will have a chance to win a Boredom Buster as I described in an earlier post to the Community Cluckers Forum. To enter, visit 1840 Farm and subscribe to our blog or follow us on Facebook or Twitter. All subscribers and followers (existing and new) will be entered in the drawing. I will accept entries until Friday, December 16, 2011 at midnight.

One winner will be randomly selected and announced on Facebook, Twitter, and in a future Community Cluckers post. Good luck to all who enter. I hope that your flock will soon be enjoying a boredom buster to help pass the time during the long winter months ahead!