And then There Were 10

Editing to add on 3/23/24: Because we are finally getting 10 eggs, we have enough now to make Hollandaise sauce for Eggs Benedict. Above is 6 over easy eggs on English muffins with ham and a delicious home-made Hollandaise sauce: Butter, egg yolks, lemon and a little smoked paprika. But it takes 10 eggs, because there are 4 yolks in the Hollandaise. I use this Hollandaise recipe I found because it’s relatively easy (no blender required) and it’s delicious.

It took almost a year. But today was the first day that we got 10 eggs from 10 chickens. Six of the hens are almost a year old, and 4 of them were added later but might have been hatched in June or July of 2023. The original 6 hatched in April, 2023. Our coop was finished at the end of May last year and the chickens were introduced shortly after. They did not start laying until August, usually 4-8 per day. Then by the time we reached this past winter, egg laying slowed down a bit, but I heard that’s kind of normal in the colder weather. So I was excited when, while it is technically still winter, we finally achieved 1 egg per chicken. I hope it continues this way, as weather warms up. I may actually have to find a way to do some egg “preservation”. Here is the group of 10 eggs (funny how these things can be exciting).

Finally: 1 egg per chicken. The one on the lower right, I suspect may have come from the new layer. It might be her first egg; that darker round spot was very soft, almost squishy.