And There Was a Little One
Egg Harvest
Every day, around 5 PM, I make my way to the chicken coop with an egg carton in one hand and a container filled with the homemade feed mix in the other.
The girls are usually already waiting for me and run inside the coop to be the first to get a hold of the goodies I am bringing them.
After I get them fresh water and locked up, I collect the eggs.
Can you imagine my surprise when I saw the little tiny one?
So cute!!
Sometimes, that happens. An egg just started to form the outer shell before it was at full size. It is not a problem unless it happens often. In that case, some detective work would be in order.
If it happens once in a while, it is just a cause for amusement and for taking some pictures.
That is one of the great advantages of raising your own chickens. Eggs come in many different shapes and colors as you can see in the collection in the carton.
When the hens first start laying, they have small little eggs. As they get older, they get bigger and bigger. While a young hen will lay every day - or almost every day depending on the breed, an older hen might only lay an egg once or twice a week.
But it will be a big one.
The egg on the left is an oddity. The one in the middle is from an older hen and the one on the right of a younger bird.
Every time a hen is molting, her egg production goes down by 20 %. In a commercial operation, the hens are getting replaced when they get into their first molt. That is a nice way of saying they are getting killed and probably turned into dog food.
In a home flock, a hen can get 7 years old, some even older. They won't lay much, but they still scratch and poop and contribute to the homestead in that way.
If you have to buy their food - they become a pet. Even small backyard urban homesteaders have to ask themselves if they have chickens for producing for them or if they are pets.
These girls are showing you where the eggs are coming from as Dan is watching over them.
We don't have any real old birds. The black and white one is the oldest and she is maybe 3 years old now.
Do you have chickens? Are they your pets or are they working for you?
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Well done!
It's probably the little known feathered turtle bird. You never see them, but they lay their eggs in alien nests. They are very dangerous. When hatched, they appear like a normal bird, but then they fly away with all your beer. At least, that's what my wife told me. :-))
So interesting! I never heard of beer stealing turtle birds before. I think I am going to install a secret camera so I can get rich from selling the photos to the inquirer!!!
Thanks for the tip!!
Thank you, that would be great. Or just take a picture of whoever's stealing my beer.
:)
That's a lot of good information about chickens and how they lay their eggs! That little one is really cute. My best friend, Sharon, raise chickens and geese and ducks for a while. I called her the animal Whisperer because all animals love her! She would walk out to the coop and the chickens would actually squawk and squat and lift their wings so that she could pet them and would even allow them to pick them up! It was quite a thing to see!
That must have been fun!! This batch is pretty wild since I didn't handle them a lot when they were babies - one drawback when the mommy raises them. Some are pretty tame and my rooster lets me handle him - one prerequisite to be a rooster that can live at our place with lots of little people around. :)
I can imagine lol. I recall a wicked goose when I dated my ex! 🤥
geese can be better defenders of your property than dogs!! But they are just too mean for me 😜
I learned to face off with him and he left me alone, but not before I ran too many times!
😂😂😂😂 it's a quail egg wannabe!!
I know!! it must be! :)
I think a quail snuck into the nest box 😉
Must be a wild quail and I haven't seen any of those around lol
What happened to your profile picture?
Phantom quail!
I tried to upload a profile months ago, failed, and gave up. But @mattlovell says he will assist me tomorrow. Hehe I am technologically delayed
I hear you!! i had the hardest time with my profile picture as well. I finally uploaded it on my website and that seemed to do the trick. If you can't get it done tomorrow, send me the pic you want to use in discord or drop it here and I'll send you a link.
If it was only dog or cat food I wouldn't worry too much. But they also sell these chickens for canned soup and other such goodies where you the consumer has no idea where those chickens came from.
Love the little egg. When I was a kid growing up my grandma had banty chickens, a small breed. Kids just love getting the tiny eggs for breakfast!
I had some of those too when we first started with keeping chickens. But I think they are not made to withstand a big rooster. And I don't have enough space to have several chicken areas. They were silkies and very cute :)
I had a super large one from a barred rock once. The egg had an entire other egg inside it! This is why I think the egg came first...
Ahhh - mystery solved!!! Yes, that can happen. That is why it is so much fun to have your own and get to see all the odd stuff.
Mystery wrapped in an enigma fo sho
They are both. I love them, especially the little ones. We just got some day-old today. They are like fluffy, white cotton balls.
Oh, there is nothing cuter than baby chicks!! For sure!! Are you going to post pictures?
Seriously they are the cutest thing. I will post pictures now you've mentioned it.
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wow! it's so cute. hahaha.. the colors of the eggs are also amazing! I haven't seen different colors of eggs in my entire life not unless it was colored with dye. haha.. thanks for sharing.
I hear you. I was used to seeing white eggs and brown eggs. That's it. but you can get a bunch of different breeds represented in your flock and get really colorful eggs that way :) No dye needed lol