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Today I got up early (OK, early for me - 10:30am) to go meet a friend at the farmers' market. My roommate let the chickens out first thing in the morning when he woke up, and I did not pay any attention to them until I came home from visiting with my friend this afternoon.
When I got home, I checked on the baby chicks and then grabbed some bread as a treat for the big chickens and headed outside with some seeds to plant before it rains. Only two of our three girls came up to me to get bread. As I planted my seeds, I kept looking for the third chicken, Victoria. She was nowhere to be found. I thought maybe a neighbor stole her, or a coyote ate her or something.
Then I remembered Joanne talking about how well her chickens can hide when they are incubating their eggs. Hmm... could that be the case? Sure enough, Victoria was hiding inside a bush. I pruned a few branches away and then began petting her. She was pretty docile so I reached under her butt. Best Easter Egg Hunt I've ever been on. Sure enough, there was a large, brown egg under her. I think she was planning to sit there til it hatched! Or until I stole it, as the case may be.
By the time I came back with my camera, she had discovered that her egg was stolen right out from under her. And she was complaining about it loudly. Here's a picture of her in her hiding spot as she gave the world a piece of her mind: Bok bok bok bok bok bok bkAW!
Victoria, in her hiding spot, after she realized I stole her egg
The proud mama
Our family all bet on which day Victoria the chicken would lay her first egg. It's been clear for a few weeks that she'll be the first, since her comb is more developed than the other two chickens' combs. I bet April 15. My roommate's older daughter bet April 3. She's our winner. As a prize, she gets to eat the egg.
In addition to the first egg, I've also been using our first chicken manure compost on the bed where I will plant my tomatoes. Check out this killer compost:
Compost with chicken manure
As a final note, I've been trying to figure out how to get my chickees to eat their eggshells so they have enough calcium to lay eggs with shells. I tried buying some oyster shell but the chickens weren't so keen on eating it. It's a fine powder so I think if I coat their food with it, that might work. But it would be simpler if they'd just eat their darn eggshells. I made an "eggshell omelet" with an egg from the farmers market and several crushed eggshells and tried to interest the chickens in it, with very little luck. So I put some jam on it. That worked. I'm going to need a simpler way to do this in the future. |
