First Egg??

Yesterday I cleaned out the hen house because I had a fresh bale of straw on hand and 9 chickens make quite a bit more of a mess than 4.

This is the result of my labors.  A tidy little hen house.  And the smell of fresh clean straw!

While I was in there I found 3 eggs, which is two more than usual.  (Ruby is the only layer currently.  Good ol' Ruby!)  And I've been waiting for the peeps to start their careers as egg layers.  It looks like that is beginning to happen now.  They'll be 20 weeks on Sunday, which from what I read is about average.

It's difficult to tell the scale of the eggs in this picture, but the two on the left were found about two weeks ago and are less than an inch and a half long.  I was hoping they were the beginning of one of the peeps egg laying cycle, but as it turns out, I believe it was the end of Tricksy's.  

Tricksy has a cycle.  She laid eggs steadily for four months when she first started, and then she took a long vacation (March through August to be exact), and since that time, she lays eggs for about two to three weeks in the fall and two to three weeks in the early spring.

Why do I keep her?  Because she takes care of Rocky.  When Rocky's wing was hurt, she was his guard during the day, and snuggled up to his injured wing to keep it warm at night and Rocky is now all better, and back to his ol' self.  

Tricksy and Rocky are like a comfortable couple who have been together for years.  I wouldn't break that up for anything.

So getting back to the photo, the egg on the right is the one I collected on Friday, and is still quite small.  I believe that egg to be a real first effort by one of the peeps.  This photo will give you a better idea of scale...

Look what happens when I add Ruby's egg to the photo.  And a tape measure for scale.  Then you get an idea of how small these eggs really are.

But wait--there's more!

Yesterday was April Fool's Day.  And it looks like one of my peeps has a sense of humor, because I did find a third egg in the hen house.  And here it is...

I kid you not.  

I cracked it open and half expected some alien life form to emerge, but no...nothing more than egg white, just as with any under sized egg.

And so the truth is that I still have to continue exercising patience while I wait to find out if my peeps will be egg layers.  Will I get more of these malformed eggs, or is this just an early manifestation that will eventually lead to perfectly formed eggs of normal size?

So tonight when I went out to the hen house, there wasn't an egg to be found.  All of the nesting boxes were empty.  Patience...patience...

But I noticed that for the first time, all four of the pullets looked different, so their plumage is changing and they are beginning to look like individuals.  I commented to them and said, "now you will have to tell me your names."  Two of them looked at me like they were trying to oblige, but the sun was setting and I was suddenly very aware of how cold I was getting.  So naming day will have to wait.

I couldn't resist taking this picture though.  They all look so cozy and happy.  Which makes me happy.

Amazing that a little 6' x 6' shed will hold 7 full sized hens and 2 roosters comfortably.