Finally, after seemingly months of eager anticipating and wondering "when will it happen"...... it happened!!!
Nestled amongst the golf balls...We got out first egg!!!!
Posing for a picture...I headed out to the pen late yesterday afternoon just to see how the chicky-doos were doing. This involves checking the food, water AND, most importantly of late, the 'nest tub' (which is a blue barrel cut in half length wise) for 'treasures'; as well as standing around and watching the flock hunt for grubs, sun themselves, or take dust baths. It's always entertaining to see!!!
This particular afternoon there was a twist to it all. There was an EGG in a NEST that a HEN had made!!!! Talk about the culmination of all that we've put into these girls!
After I dumped the feeder out...One of these lovely ladies, not the rooster in the middle of the photo, gave us our first egg. We believe her to be of the Australorpe breed which are the black hens in the above photo- their are fourteen of them.
Showing off the egg!We were pretty excited over the egg!!! It's tiny but it's a start!!! I'm already restraining myself from tromping out to the pen every hour just to see if there might be any more out there!!! It's hard, but as long as I stay busy I will manage!!! EXCITEMENT!!! :o)
Ruler of the Roost...I'll end the post with Mr. Rooster. He's a wreck. He can't crow... it's more like a one syllable squawk that sounds atrocious!!! He normally crows while they are still penned up in the mornings, when he's feeling really good during the late afternoons, and now, as of last night around 8:30, he crows in the dark! I sure hope his vocal chord growth catches up with the growth that his body is doing!!! I'm not sure how much longer of the squawking we can take! :o)
If you look close enough at the area behind the rooster you will see the beginnings of the chicken coop!! Daddy has the posts and a board for one side of the coop all ready and this weekend he'll be working on it, if it doesn't rain! I'm so excited!! Eggs and the beginnings of a coop all at the same time! :o)
6 comments:
Yeah!!! I thoroughly enjoyed this anticipated post, Ashley!! I thought that they would be laying soon given the fact that ours just started laying recently as well, but I didn't think it would be this soon. :) I am excited for you! And I can very well understand your excitement of getting the first egg! Sawyer seems pretty excited about it, too. :)
I am sure you all are looking forward to eating your very own eggs for the first time! How exciting! :)
I loved seeing all of the photos! Thank you for sharing them! And you all have one nice looking rooster. :) And hopefully he'll figure out the crowing thing soon! ;)
Hey Ashley,
We all really ejoyed out time with you this evening.
Thank you it was wonderful. I loved seeing everything in "real life". Thanks again... see you tomorrow!
Love, Christiana
Ohhh yes Sarah, I've been anticipating this event for at least a week now!!! It's so nice to see things other than golf balls in the nest 'tub' these days!!!
We had our second egg come in earlier this morning!! All morning long we heard cackling and 'happy' noises that hens make.... I went out and checked the tub mid-morning and found.... nothing, so I told the chicken making all the noise to get her act together and actually produce something worth cackling about!! I also mentioned to her that I was rather 'put out' at finding nothing as I had left a nice warm cup of coffee and a wonderful conversation with my Mother when I heard her racket (how could one wait when they knew something was going on? :o). She must have grasped what I was saying for when I went out more recently there was a nice egg nestled in beside the golf balls!!! :o)
Thank you so much for your comment Sarah! I thoroughly enjoyed it!
~Ashley
'Welcome' to my blog Christiana!!! It was wonderful to see your comment this morning!!!
I'm so glad you enjoyed yesterday evening! We really enjoyed ourselves and are really looking forward to this afternoon!!!
Your whole family is a blessing and encouragement to us!
Have a great day!
~Ashley
What are the golf balls for? Thanks.
Anonymous- Thank you for your comment!! I wondered if anyone would ask about the golf balls! :o) The golf balls are in the 'nest tub' to help give the hens an idea of what's supposed to take place there. You can buy wooden eggs or even use plastic Easter eggs but golf balls were what we had on hand.
I have no idea if this is really the theory behind putting things in the nest boxes, but I read it someplace and thought I'd give it a try (and our hens need all the help they can get!! :o)
Interestingly enough, I can tell when a hen has been sitting on the gold balls... if they aren't going to lay an egg then the two balls will be separated and randomly scattered about the tub. When they are going to lay the balls will be sitting side by side in a shallow 'hole'.
Thanks for asking!
~Ashley
Thank you for answering my question about the golf balls. I have heard of people putting them there so if a snake comes, it will eat the ball instead of your eggs! I had never heard of your reason but it is a great idea. Hope you get many more eggs. Julianne
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