An Egg-cellent Update!

It has been awhile since I've posted and even more so since I've posted about the girls! By which I mean the chickens, obviously.

This summer we got our first egg from the chickens!

Huzzah!

  I had been reading up on the egg part of chicken ownership, so I was ready for the event.  It turns out, you are not supposed to eat the first few eggs.  The chickens need "practice" and usually have a few kinks to work out.  Many times, early eggs have thinner shells, cracks or even holes in them allowing bacteria to get in so the rule of thumb is to wait about until they have laid about 4 eggs to start eating them.  Could you eat the first one?  Probably, but I was in no hurry.

A perfectly unfinished egg.

But it looks good from this side!

                                                     


After we found the first egg, the next step was to decide from which chicken it had been laid.  I had my suspicions because I knew that the chickens laid different colored eggs.  The Orpington and the Barred Rock both lay brown eggs, although the Orpingtons are a little lighter, the Dorking lays white eggs and the Barnevelder lays dark brown eggs which have become speckled as of late.

From Bottom to Top: the Orpington, the Dorking, the Barred Rock, and the Barnevelder

After we found the first one, we would get one single brown egg each day for the next week.  Then we found two.  Chickens are only capable of laying one at a time in any given day.  It takes them about 18-36 hours to produce an egg, so averaged out that ends up being one per day.  We knew there was a second culprit.

Our first and second egg layers out in the yard!

After that it wasn't long until they were all laying.  Having four layers means we get about four eggs every day, so now we have an abundance of eggs!  So, if you have a good egg recipe, let me know!  I am currently trying to sell the idea of quiche to my husband, who says it's gross (although he's never had it) because it's like an "egg pie."  He's not technically wrong, but it does sound worse that way.  Sigh.

Nighttime on the farm.