The Chicken Definitely Came Before the Egg!

I'm completely on a roll today - two posts in less than 24 hours! I just had to check in though with a fantastic chicken update...I thought about waiting, but this is just exciting news in my world, so I don't want to hold on it. Last night the husband brought in an egg that looked nothing like the others that I've been collecting, it is small and has a greenish tone, but with brown freckle-like flecks all over it...it had a crack in it which makes me think that someone's beak got to it, but the membrane wasn't broken so I put it right into the refrigerator. Definately a gift from a new chicken, our second lady to lay. In the picture above, last night's egg is the one on the right.

Then this morning when I went to open up the chicken coop, there was a new egg in one of the nesting boxes. It is a deeper green than any other egg has been and it too is smaller than the eggs I've been recently getting, the gift of our third chicken to lay. In the picture it is the egg on the left.

Since our first egg came on 9/9, it has clearly been just the one chicken laying...it was about every 36 hours initially, and has increased to about every 24 hours. She was typically laying in the late morning or early afternoon. I've never checked and had two eggs at once - I'm still waiting for that to happen. But to have two more hens start to lay within 12 hours of each other is very exciting. By the way, the egg in the center is the same color as the previous 14 eggs I've collected, all from my original layer. From this picture you can't appreciate that it is about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch longer than the two new eggs, again confirming that those eggs are the first eggs of other birds.

So our stats now are: 8 birds, 1 confirmed rooster, 3 hens that have laid at least once, and 4 birds that are presumed to be hens but have yet to lay.

Soon the light bulb that we installed in the coop will be turned on regularly with a timer. I've heard from my neighbor and a few other sources that this should help keep my ladies laying through some of the cold months.

It's very fun to have all of the work start to really pay off, and really, nothing beats the eggs, they are that good! One might say they are egg-cellent! Sorry I had to!