The $300 Egg!

There will be celebration in our house tonight. I can't stop grinning.

Lacey laid her first egg! Its just gorgeous! Perfectly light brown with almost purple spots. Its smaller than what I think they'll develop to be, but perfect shape and hardness.

Eric got to witness the commotion. Apparently she'd been trying out a number of places throughout the yard. Finally he caught her laying in the shavings on the floor of the coop. He gently picked her up and put her in the nesting box and she looked around as if to say, "woah, where'd this place come from? this is perfect for me to lay an egg in!" A few minutes later she was carrying on quite loudly and he knew she was at work.

I was only 30 minutes from being home so he waited for all four of us to check the box together.

Ta-da! Here it is!

In DH's hand...

Here we are... two proud ladies...

Comparison... Lacey's egg, a white store bought large egg, and a quarter.

"hey guys! did you check out what I can do???"

That is a pretty good size for a first egg! Congratulations for you and Lacey!

Time to get out the egg-based cookbook! I have a good one.

awww, congrats LL... great feeling isn't it?
Can you pierce the tip of the egg and blow it out and paint it golden so you can display it.. LOL

Wish I had thought of it..

Great day for you!

What a great pic - sort of looks like a graduation picture - the proud mother, the serious, studious daughter, the excitement barely contained! And such a lovely pencilled hen! She really looks very pleased with herself!

And as soon as she lays her second egg, they will both only be $150 eggs. :-) What a bargain!

Tell us again, how old is she? And now she's not really so lazy any more!

There were about 100 chickens of various ages all running around when we went to pick out our original three girls. I walked away thinking that she was 10 weeks and Talula was 8 weeks at that time. So I'd have to guess she hatched around May 11th and Talula hatched around May 25th.

So that'd make her about 21 weeks or 5 months this Sunday. That sound about right for laying age?

I would say that sounds just about perfect!

I have some pullets that I acquired in early August that were probably 2 weeks old when I got them. I'm guessing they are about 12 weeks now. I will assume no eggs until spring because they will mature in the middle of winter. Grumble...

If you feed them right, as 16% egg mash, & keep them where it's not extremely cold, they will start laying on schedule.
We had hens laying all winter last year even though they were in a cold building. You must check for eggs often so they don't freeze.
Our babies are 1 week old today. Amazing how fast they grow!

How is the egg a $300 egg ?

Bernie

I will have a light in the coop for warmth and egg laying purposes. I am at work about 9 hours a day so can't check then, but will check as often as I can. This is my first winter for having chickens. I'm a bit nervous about it. I did get heated waterers already and hope that will do the trick for the watering aspect.

Bernie,
Its half joke and half --sadly-- truth... if I add up what I spent on them -- chick starter, layers crumbles, waterers, feeders, scratch, oyster shell, grit, critter proof containers for each of the previously mentioned feed, chicken wire, poultry netting, pine shavings, hardware for the coop (the rest of the materials were recycled), a VET bill, medication, etc...etc... its probably frighteningly close to that dollar amount. HA!

Seriously, I'm not counting and we all know that start up is always more expensive than maintenance.

SW Washington winters don't get that cold -- nothing compared to what some of y'all get. We plan to put a white light in their coop mainly for extending the daylight for laying, but I figure it can't hurt for raising the temp a little bit too.

OH happy day! What a thrill.. and you got to be there!! I'm so tickled for ya.. I love the pics.. Proud momma.. wonderful.. She is beautiful.

Congratulations!

You're Welcome!
******************
CF

I hear ya on the 300 dollar egg.

CHICKEN FAIRY I KNEW IT WAS YOU!!!!

************************THANK YOU***********************************

LOL After thinking about it.. if you got of by only spending $300. you got off cheap!

I made some tomato sauce that I swear was a couple hundred dollars a quart... and I'd still loose money!

The satisfaction of this wonderful day is what makes it priceless..

yes yes yes so true, my eggs are a bit more than 300 bucks but..............I wouldnt be here chatting with you all if I didnt have them. So as the commercial says...........PRICELESS

LOL - just glad I'm not the only one! :-D

Make that 2 $150 eggs! She laid again today. another adorable, perfectly shaped, colored, and hardness... one question, she seems a bit off. she keeps laying at 4pm. any way to encourage her to lay earlier in the day?

I started getting up earlier and feeding earlier and now they are just about done laying by 1 pm.. I refuse to feed before 6 am..

So.. Older/ wiser chicken folk.. is there anything to the feed schedule?

Oh yea.. because I raise cornish, I remove all food at night.. a pain, but they shouldn't be eating and usually don't eat at night anyway. Now those darn cornish.. they will eat 24/7 if you let them.

Interesting thought. I just spent an hour or so this evening figuring out how to cover their food in the coop so that they are not pooping in it from the roost. I have food in there so that I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn and feed them. They don't eat in the evening though. When they go in their coop, its about 20 minutes before dark and they get on their roost and settle in for the night.

They are suppose to lay a little later each day until it is night--they won't lay at night, so then they start in the morning and begin moving through the day again. So theoretically you should have eggs for several days then skip a day. According to Damerow.

oh cat.. who made you so darn smart?

that makes perfect sense.. the revolving egg.. so the feed schedule had nothing to do with it.. I just happened to change as thier schedule changed..

And what is worse.. I keep track of what was laid and now that cat said that I can look at the egg numbers and see it!!

Ever feel very not scientific??? lol breakfast at 4 am hmmph!

It would never have occurred to me either. I just listen for the cackling:0) It is that smarty pants Damerow that explained it.

Well I just went on the schedule I read somewhere, they can ONLY lay an egg every 24-26 hrs. So I went with the 26 hr range. And it is pretty close to correct. But I did not know they would not lay at night so that is why they skip a day sometimes.

Kinda cool how nature works.

CONGRATS!!
I'm so jealous. Hopefully we aren't too far behind you in the "egg department". We got our girls mid-June and they were supposedly a week old. So, I would say, hopefully, within the month.
We'll see.

that's the part that was frustrating for us -- misinformation. we got our girls in mid-july and they were supposedly 10 weeks and 6 weeks old. they said they'd lay within a month. we were new to chickens and fell for it. ha! so we've been expecting since august. ;-)

Its just Lacey so far. Talula was the 6 week old. So she is probably another couple weeks behind Lacey. Anya is even smaller than the other two so I'm thinking she's younger yet. So we'll see!

Nice thing about our girls is they should all lay different color eggs. So it'll be easy to tell who's laying and who's not. :)

That is good, all different colored eggs. .......ours should all be brown eggs, so who knows?? I can't wait for our big day!! :)
My (almost) 15 year old son thinks we're nuts!! "Mom, really, chickens??"

We have three eggs now! Man did Lacey make a ruckus today about this one. I was out in the yard and had to put her back in the nesting box four times. She squawked and squawked and finally layed another. Its a bit bigger so I think she was protesting. ha!

I suppose it's like giving birth!!

Maybe this egg was like a 10 lb. baby :)