The Egg

A chicken and an egg walk into a bar. The barman says, “Who’s first?” O.k., I’m scrambling for an egg joke here, but I just can’t seem to crack you up. Guess I’m fried. Sorry, that was an egg-streamly bad pun but I’m just so egg-cited! Alright, alright, I’ll stop! Getting back to it here - in our case, the chickens came first. Since they arrived last July, I kept thinking of the day when the girls would start producing eggs. Logically, I knew that it would happen someday about six months into the future, but it still seemed to me like a distant concept at the time. Well, a couple of weeks ago I happen to be in the chicken coop, cleaning and tidying as I do daily, when I happen to look in one of the nesting boxes. I let out a small screech of surprise, literally, because there, in the nest box, was our very first egg! I immediately took a photo of it and then, after finishing my chicken chores, proudly took it up to the house and presented it to John whereupon he exclaimed, with a big smile on his face, “No way!” Yes, Way! Our girls were starting to do what chickens do and finally lay eggs.

Because the egg was white, I knew it had to be one of two of our hens that lay white eggs. It was either our Leghorn, Pearl, or our Golden Campine, Goldie. I thought back on the last couple of weeks and how, when I went to pet Pearl, she immediately squatted into the “submissive” position. This is the position a hen takes around a rooster when he is “in the mood” so to speak. I doubt that Pearl thinks I am a giant rooster, but it definitely was a telltale sign that something was changing. Next, I saw her poking around the nest boxes, checking them out thoroughly. This too was something new as the chicks pretty much ignored the nest boxes. When they were very young, I covered the boxes with chicken wire so they couldn’t get into them and basically use them as a toilet. As they got older and approaching egg-laying maturity, I thought it prudent to remove the chicken wire, and lo and behold, Pearl was checking them out for their intended purpose! I strongly suspected she was the first to produce the egg for a few reasons. First, because of her behavior described above; second, she is a Leghorn and this breed is basically an egg-laying machine, producing 280-320 eggs per year; and third, the egg was jumbo, quite a bit larger than our smaller hen, Goldie, would produce. Of course, I had to try our first egg, so John quickly prepared an omelet for me. It was delicious! The best egg I ever ate. Well alright, maybe I am a little partial, but it was a great egg. Good girl Pearl.

A few days later I was in the coop again (I am in there a lot), cleaning and tidying as usual, and miracle of miracles there were now two eggs in nesting boxes, one a little smaller than the other! This time I had no doubt that both of our white egg layers had begun producing. What a thrill this was for me, and not just because I had lived in a large city for so many years and was not used to experiencing nature this way. My friend in the neighborhood, who is a chicken keeper herself and has been for many years, told me to expect the excitement when I discovered my first egg, and I was not disappointed. Here is our little Goldie. You go, girl!

As the days stretched on, Dina, our Cream Legbar, followed suit getting in on the action and produced her first blue egg. It was a lovely contrast with the white ones and such a beautiful pale blue color. It reminded me of an Easter egg. As mentioned in one of my previous blogs entitled Here chick, chick, chick! (February 11, 2020), blue eggs, and indeed shades of green, dark chocolate brown, light brown, pinkish brown, speckled, and many other colors, are exactly the same as the white and brown chicken eggs you find in the grocery store. The only difference being the breed of chicken that produced it. Here is that little cutie, Dina, and her pretty blue egg.*

We are still waiting for our two largest hens, Lacey, our Wyandotte, and Brit, our Speckled Sussex, both pictured below, to lay. They will each produce lovely larger brown eggs, one light in color, the other slightly darker. I have noticed their behavior changing over the last few days so hopefully we will have a couple more pleasant surprises soon.

At some point, perhaps in the spring, I would like to add a few more chicken breeds to our flock. A Black Copper Marans that will lay the darkest chocolate brown eggs, an Olive-Egger that will lay shades of green, and a Lavender Orpington that will lay light brown eggs (hopefully with a pinkish hue). I do love a colorful egg basket!

It will soon be raining eggs here at Carriage House Farms, and I would love to be able to share them with you. Let’s imagine I am doing egg-actly that now. Here you go.

Until next time, that’s all Yolks!

K.

* Sadly, our other blue egg-laying hen, Betsy, passed away in December. I would like to send a heartfelt “Thank You” to all of you who have asked about her after reading my November 30th blog post entitled “Chick Issues.” R.I.P. sweet Betsy Boo.