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.
I’ve been so busy harvesting tomatoes and beans that I haven’t been able to post anything. Today it is a rainy day for the first time in some time, and although I may try to sneak out between rain drops and mow the lawn, I can sit for a bit here at my desktop. I’m here to say the chickens have finally laid an egg. It happened on Tuesday, August 8. We had quite the storm Monday evening into Tuesday AM (not that this necessarily had anything to do with it), but voila, Tuesday morning: EGG. It was exciting. Below is a picture of it. It was not exactly “in” one of the two nesting boxes. It was a few inches outside of them. I was so excited to see the first egg after weeks of waiting (2 months, maybe?), that I forgot to take a pic of the placement of it in the coop. But there it is, in all it’s 37 gram glory. That’s a little over an ounce by the way. Not quite a “Jumbo”, but it’s still an EGG! Scroll down, and see the 2nd egg that came yesterday, August 9th. It was slightly larger at 38 grams, and it was laid near the door of the coop, again, not in a nesting box.
Here is same egg next to a Jumbo I bought at Rick’s Egg Farm. Their jumbos can range in weight from 68 to 78 Grams. Twice the size, basically. See it still has little flecks of straw on it. I don’t know which chicken this egg came from, but I’ll try to find out.Egg #2! This might be the hen that laid it, and she might be interested in protecting it, but she didn’t fight me for it. Again, the egg not laid in a box, but near the chickens’ door into the coop.The 2 eggs, covered in debris from the coop. So far there is not one today, but I’m about to go out and check. Since they are so small (both under 40g), we’re going to collect a few and maybe have them as scrambled eggs this weekend, if they produce some more.
I’ve been meaning to post this “Chicken” write-up for quite some time, and I am finally just getting to it, even though the chickens arrived in May. We had quite a bit of discussion over the need for having our own chickens (and the obvious eggs), and finally determined that due to the unreliability and questionability of store-bought eggs, we should have our own. At least we will know what the chickens ate. We found a guy on Facebook Marketplace that would build a coop on site, and it was fairly reasonable, although, it is going to be years worth of egg production to make that a “break-even” (if ever). Nevertheless, we should soon have a reliable source of eggs. It started with Michael, who built the coop on site over a couple of weekends in May, then the chickens arrived May 21. We are looking forward to eggs hopefully in July sometime. In the meantime, they eat quite a bit and they are getting big. They are getting their share of kitchen scraps as well. Below are the series of “build” pictures with captions, up to the arrival of the chickens.
And so it begins: the coop being built on siteMichael the builder working on the “Coop” partMoving along: Needs doors and chicken wireThe following weekend, coop was complete and ready for chickens (5/15/23)Michael the builder poses in front of completed coop. Saoirse (Frenchie to the right), photo-bombs the photoOn May 20, we received a delivery of 8 purchased chickens. These are 5 of the 8.A close up: Eating table scraps. We wait patiently for the first eggs.Our Frenchie Saoirse is amused by the chickens. They’ve more or less gotten used to her.
Nature and Gardens on Cooks Creek 