Big day here. Sitting in my office, slaving away for The Man, I heard this very loud… clucking? No, more like… bokking. Bok!… Bok!… Bok!…
It was loud enough that I had to get up and go see what was going on out there. I looked in the coop, and I only saw three of the girls. Uh-oh… could it be an escape?!
But then, I saw that Margaret was actually here:
Margaret apparently wanted a little time alone. She sat there for about 10 minutes.
And left us this:
Our first actual (albeit comically small) egg!
Note the fake one. I had this gag egg (hey, catch!) that’s made out of rubber, and I put it in there yesterday just to clue them in to the rationale for the little box with the flip top. Seems to have gotten the message across.
Here it is:
It was actually remarkably egg-like aside from the reduced dimensions. The shell was nice and hard, the yolk was bright orange, and the white stood right up in the bowl.
I will admit that, at first, I was a little grossed out at eating it. I know. That makes NO sense given my ease of eating some god-awful factory farmed pseudo-egg. Still, I had a moment of thinking “oh man, think back, what have I fed her?… this thing just came OUT of that chicken!… ew…”
I got over it. The micro-scramble was delicious.
Yay!!! Congrats, Margaret….we just KNEW you had it in ya!
I had a surprising and big Bok Bok BOK!!! session from my Buff Orpington, Spongebob, yesterday. I had never heard ANY of them make this noise before (and I’ve heard it often at the farm I volunteer at just after a hen lays), so I got really excited. A quick view into the run, though, yielded nothing, but, still….is it time?
How old are your chickens? My girls are 17 weeks old (today! yay!), having gotten them on 3/05/08, but the books don’t even say to start feeding “laying feed” until 20 weeks, so this is way too early for them to lay, right? I don’t even have nesting boxes up yet!
Ok, I went hunting and found an old post of yours from 3/12 stating that your hens were 2 weeks old, so you must’ve gotten your girls just a week before me?
And what is Margaret sitting in? Does she have a metal nest box?
I can relate about the slight weirding out over eating the egg…I went crabbing once and was literally unable to eat what I had caught. It made the whole food-chain process just a bit too real, you know?
Um, sorry for the long comment….
Thanks… we’re all very proud of her.
Yeah, well, Mags sort of danced around the issue for a couple of days… bokking… digging holes… assuming the position. I’d guess Bob’s doing the same thing. They’re pretty much meat robots, so their behaviors tend to be pretty predictable/standard.
Mine are about 18 weeks or thereabouts… which I think is early to start laying, but facts is facts. I’d get those boxes up. Or at least one. I designed a little wood box into the back of the henhouse when I was building it. It sticks out the back and has a latched flip-top so we can collect the eggs.
Long comments rule.
As my (beloved) client likes to say: “You always write a book.”
Hmpf. What a thought! My babies are not meat robots. I challenge you to a duel (with weapons of my choice) at dawn for suggesting as much.
My girls are fluffy, enthusiastic, eccentric little fowl babies who are merely a bit daft.
Sigh. Nest boxes. Guess I better quickly learn how to build stuff. Good think I like going to Home Depot.
I know you mentioned you were feeding them pellets now, but are those specifically layer pellets or still chick feed? Are you supplementing with oyster shells?
Fine. I’m using one of these chickens. Gonna swing her around over my head and hurl her at you like a catapult. And don’t try holding up Pip as a shield.
The good news, as far as I can tell, about nest boxes is that they are… boxes. So, your carpentry skills should be able to manage that. It only gets tricky if you want to make them with a fancy lid or something.
Yeah, layer pellets. Fancy, organic, twice as expensive as they should be, layer pellets. I’m not yet supplementing. I’m going to wait until they’re all laying for that– even then, only if it seems like they need it.
Congratulations to you and Margaret! Really fresh eggs are so, so much better than ancient supermarket ones.
I once saw someone’s chicken coop where they used plastic bicycle baskets as nest boxes, complete with those cheesy plastic flowers. When they needed to clean them, they just took them off the wall and hosed it out. Not sure if it was practical, but it was amusing nonetheless.
I said weapons of *my* choice. Fine, though, use your chicken. I’ll be the one will be hurling massive piles of donkey dung.
Didya see? Didya SEE??? I was only ONE day behind you! Spongebob laid her first egg yesterday afternoon!!! Wheeeeeeee!!