Since my last post, I have had 1 egg every day. I have weighed the eggs each day and they have been getting bigger and bigger – unfortunately my digital scales only go up to 50 grams so I can no longer keep track of their weight. I had been trying to work out who was laying the eggs all week and on Saturday I finally figured it out.
I got up around 10:00 on Saturday and the brown one (I know I need to give her a name!) was nowhere to be seen. I opened up the coop and she was laying down in the nest box. She ended up going in and out of the nest box for about an hour and when I went outside there was an egg in the box – still warm and …moist (nice).
Yesterday a similar thing happened and she laid another egg. I took the egg back inside and then the grey one started to act a bit weird, also going in and out of the nest box for a while and she laid an egg too! I was pretty pleased – 2 hens have started laying in the past week.
The grey one laid this egg (on the right) which was 33.63 grams. The egg on the left is a shop bought large egg.
Later on I went outside to change their water and I found the tiniest egg laying in the run – the third egg of the day. Now I have 3 chickens that are all laying so I’ve been eating eggs for breakfast over the weekend which has been great. It’s very satisfying to be eating eggs produced in your own garden.
I have been eating lots of eggs
The first 2 eggs I got off of the brown one were laid in the run and were very dirty. Luckily she has started to lay in the nest box which is good – although they still get a bit dirty because the girls sleep in there. The grey one also managed to do it in the nest box yesterday but today she did it on the hard coop floor which caused the egg to crack. I am still waiting for daisy’s second egg…
Daisy's tiny egg is bottom left, the brown one's egg is top left and the 2 on the right are shop bought.
Apart from the egg laying not a lot else has happened. I have been trying to get the chickens used to being picked up by picking them up once or twice a day. They really don’t seem to like it so I’m not sure if I will carry on doing it. It could make things easier for me if they do get used to it because sometimes I have to pick them up to put them in the run.
The girls are getting a bit more used to me now.
Last night I blocked off the nest box so that the girls were forced to sleep in the coop. I was hoping that they would use the perches but instead they all huddled together on the floor near the nest box. It did make poo picking a lot easier though (the floor of the coop slides out) and means that the nest box is still clean for laying. I am going to keep blocking it off each night until they learn to sleep on the perches.