EGGS!

Thursday, September 13. When I cleaned the coop in the morning, Sara was sitting in a nesting box on top of the ceramic eggs. She was not inclined to move, either. I lifted her up one side at a time to check, but nothing. Still, I thought it was a good sign.

Sara sitting in the nest box on top of the ceramic egg (white)

Terry and I were watching the Bears getting walloped by Green Bay that evening when I heard footsteps on the stairs. My mother knocked and asked to come in, which is nothing unusual. She often comes down to get things out of or put things in freezers, etc. My dad had come down also, which was unusual.  Hilda was grinning like a little kid at Christmas. “We have an egg!” she announced, holding out a tiny, perfect little brown egg. Well. She and I got on the phone to call all the people who have been following the chicken adventure most closely—Pat and Nancy, Jane, and Kate. This first egg was found on the floor of the coop.

First egg on the floor of the chicken coop (and Ellie has to know what's going on)

No more eggs the next morning. When I got done at the Fitness Center about 2:00 Friday afternoon, there was a message on my office phone (and my cell phone, and my email) that a second egg had been found AND this one was in a nesting box! Hilda had also weighed both eggs. Egg #1 was 1.2 oz. and Egg #2 was 1.1 oz. She compared this to the standard grade sizes—a small egg weighs 1.5 to 1.75 oz. So these were, presumably, teensy eggs. (Jane says they are called “pullet eggs” which makes a certain amount of sense, since pullets are young hens. I can never see that word without thinking of the Anguished English story about the student who wrote about someone receiving the “Pullet Surprise”.)

The second egg in the nest box with a brown ceramic egg (in back)

Our first two teensy eggs

Hilda and I divided the eggs this morning. She gave me the first egg and kept the second. Tragedy struck when I was trying to show Terry that the shell seemed just as hard as a normal egg. Somehow the egg stuck to my fingers as I opened my hand, and instantly the egg was on the floor. The shell was not strong enough to withstand impact with tile-covered cement. I could only think of the immortal words of my late Uncle Carl, who always knew what to say in a crisis: Well, God damn.

The sad fate of the first egg

Let me tell you, there is quite a lot of fluid inside a 1.2 oz. egg. A paper towel and a half was not enough. Terry got a wet rag and finished what I couldn’t wipe up. Hilda graciously surrendered the second egg, since she was having a doughnut for breakfast anyway. I called her in when the egg was ready so she could have a bite. It was delicious!

External comparison between the second egg and standard large eggs

Internal comparision of the second egg (right) and a grocery store large egg (left).
Note lovely golden color and round, upright stance of our egg's yolk.

Terry spotted the third egg this morning in the middle of the run. His hypothesis is that these eggs are so small that the hens don’t really know they’re coming, so they just drop them wherever. According to this hypothesis, they will get better about laying them in the nest boxes when the eggs are larger. We shall see!