Four Dozen Milestone

Elsie and Gladys

As of this morning our girls have laid 4 dozen eggs in 3 weeks. I have been eating eggs like crazy now that they are plentiful, making quiches, omelette, boiled (hard and soft) and fried eggs for meals. They are laying beautifully now with an average of 5 a day this week.

Most eggs are laid in the nesting boxes. We have one who is laying on the ground in the coop. We know that it is the purple one, however Mark didn't quite have the time to try and coax her into a nest box before she squished out her egg when he caught her seeking a laying spot in the coop. I don't think it is a problem of not enough nest boxes because she has laid in the afternoon when no-one else was using them and on morning when I have only had one other egg. Hopefully she'll learn as she gets bigger that eggs go in nest boxes. I'll reduce the amount of straw we lay out in their coop to keep it clean and see if that helps.

We also had one incident with Gladys, who decided to hide her egg one afternoon in some bird netting laying on the back side of the vegetable patch. Luckily I noticed she was missing and we caught her exiting her special place and found her egg. It would have been an unpleasant thing to find in a few months time. For a little while we are leaving them locked up until the afternoon, or until we've had 5 eggs.

Little Elsie still isn't laying yet, but she is catching up to everyone now. Her comb is just starting to become larger and more colourful. When they all have their heads down eating it is harder to tell her from the others now as they all have big fluffy hen bums instead of the sleek form of young pullets.