Guess the Date of Our First Omlette and Win!

It was raining pretty steadily yesterday morning, but I was able to lure my hens out of their coop for a photo shoot with a pile of cracked corn and a little "Heeeeeere chick chick chick chick". How nice of them to cooperate and make this post possible.This coming Saturday, August 15th will mark the 17th week that I have been the happy mother of 8 chickens. At this point I have cleaned out their coop 12 times in past 12 weeks, moved their coop after each cleaning so they'd have fresh grass under their little chicken feet, dealt with them pecking down beautiful rows of lettuce and cabbage in my garden when they were out free-ranging, purchased 50 pound bags of feed for them 3 times in addition to several bags of chick starter feed purchased when they were little, faithfully made sure that they had little piles of oyster shell available to them for their calcium needs, treated them to all sorts of leftovers and scraps from the kitchen, sprayed them and their coop to prevent mites, watched as they've been sorting out their pecking order (the gal in the picture below by the way is Berkeley - she started off in the lead for dominant chicken, lately not-so-much, another bird, Castro Valley, Castro for short, has been stepping out as the head chicken in charge)......I've run after them around the garden trying to herd them back into their coop too many times to count, defended them when they were babies from Figaro's natural instinct to kill and eat them (check out this post), laughed when as nearly grown up hens they surrounded Figaro, found friends to watch over them twice when we've gone out of town, worried about them when our neighbors chickens have been attacked by coyotes and weasles in the past few weeks, grabbed extra grocery bags at the market so I'd be able to line their poop trays with fresh bags, and generally I've tried to be the best chicken farmer I could figure out how to be.


All of this and still no reward in the form of even a single egg from my girls. From different chicken information sources I've learned that typically the first egg comes at 5 months or 20 weeks of age. I've also heard that it can happen anywhere between 17-22 weeks. As I've said before, I've had my girls for nearly 17 weeks now. I'm not exactly sure how old they were when I brought them home, a safe assumption is 2-3 days...all of this adds up to alot of anticipation and my egg count down. Playing the role of avian OB-Gyn, I'd set their egg "due date" right around Labor Day (kind of ironic right?), but there's no way to be completely sure.

In anticipation of the day that all of this hard work pays off and I have access to a healthy and [sort of] free source of protein each and everyday, I am hosting a contest, complete with a give-away prize. By the way, if you've never learned about the huge health benefits of backyard eggs over store-bought, check out this website.


The contest...to participate leave a comment on this post answering the following:

• your prediction of the day that my ladies hatch their first egg.
• whether you think it will be green or blue (the breed of chickens I have, Americaunas, are known for their pastel blue and green eggs)

The prize...the pillow slipcover shown below (actually the prize pillow cover may end up being a copy of one of the one below, on Tuesday I left this one and a few other handmade items with a local shop owner who I am arranging to have sell some of my items...I'll have to do a post about that later this week, I'm pretty excited!)Best of luck to all who chose to participate in this blessed event with me...and if chicken pillows really aren't your style, please still make a guess, I've also got those snazzy coffee sack pillows as a prize option!