Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Chicken Update...aka Egg Update

The chickens have finally started laying eggs as was posted previously. Small light brown. Medium dark brown. Medium light brown. And small dark brown. First it was one egg a day. Then two eggs a day. Then tree and four eggs a day. But there are seven chickens. Who was laying what?

The boys had identified a few of the layers by keeping an eye on the coop and tracking who was spending time in the nesting boxes. The Buff Orpington was the first to lay an egg. Next was one of the Barred Rock chickens. They also believe one of the Black Australorps has been spending some time in the nesting boxes.

Today we know for sure who one of the eggs layers is. It is one of the Americauna chickens, also known as an Easter Egger, due to the green and blue tinted eggs they lay.

Our first "Easter Egg."

Every day going to the coop and getting the eggs is an exciting event for the boys. They race to the coop to see what might be waiting for them. Today it was an extra special surprise with the green egg.

We still have two more chickens that need to start laying, and we are sure it will only be a matter of days now. All these weeks of raising the chickens from just day old chicks is now paying off.

One of the Americauna chickens at only a few weeks old.

Eggs don't get more fresh than right out of the coop and into the frying pan. Less than 50 yards and a matter of minutes from the egg 'factory' to the frying pan.  No nasty chemicals or processing.  And our chickens are free ranging and happy! We can tell by how they come running up to me when I get home from work.

The added bonus this week is that our friends nearby that have chickens are on vacation. So they asked us to take care of their chickens. The payment is that we get the eggs while they are away, and they have 14 chickens, although only six are currently laying. Next week they are going to take care of our chickens while we are gone for a few days, and they get to keep our eggs. By quantity and size, we get the better end of the deal. But from a good looking carton of eggs, they definitely will come out ahead!

1 comment:

  1. Those eggs are just beautiful!! Sigh....still waiting here :-)

    ReplyDelete