I found our first egg yesterday!
It was such a surprise as it wasn’t laid in the nesting box and we were not expecting eggs yet. Chickens start laying their first eggs after five and half months so the eggs were due next week. When we let the chickens out this morning we found our second egg!
The second egg is a little bigger than the first egg but neither is quite to size yet. We don’t know which chicken is laying the egg; any idea how to figure that out?
We couldn’t wait to have our first egg for breakfast; we compared it to the organic, free range eggs that I buy at the farmers’ market, which is at the bottom of this photo. Our egg is at the top.
Our egg was small, but otherwise it looked just like the eggs that I grew up eating in Calabria. The yolk was an intense orange and the taste …well what can I say? There was no comparison. I fixed it the way I always loved to eat them when I was a kid, fried in extra virgin olive oil, sunny side up.
Here is a picture of our chickens, all grown up now.
Our challenge now is to teach the chickens to lay their eggs in their cozy nesting box! Any suggestions?
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Congratulations! And yes, I do have a tip for you. Go to the craft store and buy wooden eggs and some craft paint in your egg color, looks like a light brown. Paint your eggs, and when they’re dry, “seed” the nest boxes with them.
Our chickens are Ameraucana and they lay pink and blue eggs, so we painted our eggs pale pink and blue and put two wooden eggs in each nest box. It works every time! Occasionally we’ll find an egg on the floor of the coop, but rarely, and we figure it to have been an “accident”.
I know that first egg feeling, it’s a good one. Our first egg was a surprise too! And green! I would guess that the pinkish egg is from your buff orpington and the larger, darker one from the barred rock. Just a guess. Our first egg (the green one) came from one of our Ameracaunas. As for the nesting box, I find a golf ball in each nesting box seems to get the message across. Good luck!
jj
I have no advice, but i am jealous! Nothing can be a fresh egg.. I made a pastry cream to die for when i had some
Hi,
We have had chickens for a couple of years now. I was so surprised when they laid their first eggs right in the nesting box. I wondered how they would know. You need to be sure it is dark where the nest is. Ours stick out from the side of the coop, so no light gets into the part where they go in to lay. That is the only thing I know for sure that they like. I really like your blog.
Carol
Carol.
The nesting egg area is dark and cozy so we are going to try what Claudia suggested to put in a wooden egg.
JJ,
We had placed a golf ball in the nesting box and they kicked it out over and over. I think I am going to try the wooden painted egg as Claudia suggested and see if that works.
Claudia,
thanks for the suggestion of using a colored wooden egg. We had tried the golf ball and they kicked it out of the nesting box.
I am going to give that a try.
Rosetta, we just used plastic Easter eggs filled with sand and masking taped closed, we put a few in the box and they seemed to get it right away! I have enjoyed seeing your chickens and LOVE the coop you built for them. Thanks for sharing the pictures!
How wonderful! Congrats on the eggs. If you have some eggs left, you could try putting a real egg in their nest; that’s how we trained ours. Good luck!
Somehow they figure it out after the third day of laying eggs they went to the right place.
YAY – isn’t it nice to have your own eggs!
Auguri! There is *nothing* like your own fresh eggs. I recently posted about our birds and eggs too:
http://bleedingespresso.com/2010/06/three-hens-a-bantam-rooster-and-double-yolk-eggs.html
P.S. Paolo introduced me to frying some of those Tropea onions in the olive oil before breaking the egg over them…AMAZING! The recipe below is with a slice of cheese as well, but we don’t do that as often as without the cheese:
http://bleedingespresso.com/2008/07/whats-cooking-wednesday-fried-eggs-with-red-onion-and-cheese.html
You can put wooden eggs or golf balls in the nesting boxes and it will encourage the chickens to lay their eggs in the boxes.