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An EGG-citing Day!

I had calculated about when we would get our first egg and thought it to be around July 15.  A couple of weeks ago some of the hens began squatting when I pet them and I’ve read that when this happens, they should start laying in a week or so.  I kept watching and watching and I just knew I was going to get an egg by the end of June but Vince . . the always right husband . . said it would be after July 1 and it was!

It was today!  We got the first chickens on March 6.  From everything I read, they could begin laying any time from 18 weeks to 6 months.  Yesterday was 17 weeks.  Earlier this afternoon I was out at the coop and one of the chickens kept squawking and going back and forth into the egg box.  I felt pretty sure today was the day for her to lay her first egg.  I just left her alone and went back in the house but when I went back out, there was my first, lovely, beautiful, brown egg!

It’s small . . a pullet egg, which is simply an egg from a hen who’s just started laying.  As I recall from my previous chickens, the small, pullet eggs last a few weeks or maybe a month, then they go through a while of laying giant, double yolked eggs before finally laying a uniform, large brown egg most every day.

In the picture above,  my new egg is next to a large grocery store egg.  You can see the huge difference and the large egg isn’t extra large!  With 6 Gold Stars (or Golden Comets) and 7 Production Reds, I’m figuring that within a couple of weeks, I’ll be getting about 10 eggs a day, or close to 6 dozen eggs per week.  I’ll probably get a little less than a dozen a week from the three Dominique hens so, if all goes well, I’ll have about 7 dozen eggs per week.  Fresh eggs, anyone?

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Comments

  3. WOOHOO!

    Now I must go check on my babies and see if they are interested in giving me any eggs. I just looked and I’m 3 weeks behind you! Guess I’ll sit and watch and wait. 🙂

  5. When I had chickens I made a lot of Angel Food Cakes from scratch. That helped keep the eggs from getting ahead of me. Yum, now I have made myself hungry.

    Melinda

  6. Clucking my excitement! Yay! Still waiting on ours, but we didn’t gets our chicks until April do it’ll be a tad longer. Crack a few up for me!

  7. I was watching a video about canning, and when she got too many eggs, she would pickle them. She didn’t like pickled eggs, but said they were great for stuff like potato salads. So that’s an option for when the chickens aren’t laying very much.

  9. You may or may not get an egg a day from your ladies. Mostly though, once they get down to the business of laying eggs, you’ll get a lot of them, but don’t *count* on 10 eggs/day.

    What’s wonderful about having your own chickens, is that you KNOW the eggs are better than store-boughts. The yolks are a dead give-away … they are bright yellow/orange and raise up *very* high over the whites. They look like yellow ping-pong balls! 🙂

    The friends & neighbors we sell our surplus eggs to (and yes, we have a LOT of surplus eggs!) swear up and down that our eggs taste so much better than store-boughts. Personally, I can’t tell the difference in the *taste*, but if they claim than, who am I to dissuade them? 🙂

    One friend who loves to cook and bake says that our eggs cause her baked goods to raise higher and lighter than with store-boughts. I’ll take her word for it. I do know that she sure does bake and cook tasty stuff! 🙂

  10. Yippe yi o – your first egg. It’s a beauty. Which little girl gave you this present?? Now the fun begins to use them all in delicious baking and cooking!

    What a nice Fourth of July celebration at the Yellow Jacket Ranch.

  11. Yay! Now you & Vince must feel like you are really home! The icing on the cake!
    Someone told me Fluff was eggs and sugar! Maybe u can make homemade Fluff too! Lol! 🙂
    Hope you are feeling better Judy!!

  12. Judy, do you have some of those fake eggs placed in the nest box for “inspiration”? It seemed to help when I had chickens. Mine were free range and would find other places to lay if they saw the eggs were disappearing from the nest. I would usually mark one with a crayon and leave it there each day…tossing it and leaving a newly marked one every few days.

  13. Judy, do you have some of those fake eggs placed in the nest box for “inspiration”? It seemed to help when I had chickens. Mine were free range and would find other places to lay if they saw the eggs were disappearing from the nest. I would usually mark one with a crayon and leave it there each day…tossing it and leaving a newly marked one every few days.

  15. Wish I lived a little closer, I would happily purchase farm fresh eggs from you!

  17. Hooray! My babies are 18 weeks, so I have been on the look out. I am glad you mentioned the ‘squatting’ that they do, a couple of mine just started doing that in the last couple days and I was wondering what they were doing.

  18. Yay, chickens! Whatever are you going to do with all those eggs? If I were nearby, I’d take some for you. 😉

  19. Judy – you can keep some of them in waterglass – which will hold them for quite a while. Or you can freeze them – I used to keep ice cube trays especially for this – sooooooooooo much easier to figure out how many tablespoons or eggs to add to a recipe! Most of the waterglass eggs I believe work fine for scrambling (I can’t remember – entirely too long!) and freezing them – you can separate the yolks and whites – but I think you add something to the whites for freezing so they will whip up into peaks – have to go check – can’t remember!

    definitely envy you the chickens – and I LOVE the looks of the little sultan! Very cute!

  20. SEVEN DOZEN EGGS A WEEK!??! …sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. But woman, what are you going to do with 84 eggs every week? Jiminy Crickets. Can you sell that many? Okay, I’m a little jealous of your life and your gardens and your chickens, but I’m also intimidated by the idea of that many eggs. Not you though, huh?

    • My thoughts exactly!! My husband and I rarely go through a dozen eggs in a MONTH, let alone 7 dozen a week, good grief! Good luck Judy and congrats!

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