An egg at last!

Yesterday, October 11 about 10:00, I heard some squawking in the chicken coop. I went in to investigate. Once in the coop, I heard someone thrashing around in the nest boxes. I carefully raised the panel to peek inside. The first nest box had been swept nearly clean of wood chips. Kirsty (one of the Buff Orpingtons) was in the middle box. She was sitting quietly at the time, blinking at me. I put a hand underneath her to check for an egg. I didn’t see anything and quickly retreated, not wanting to upset her. As soon as I shut the panel, the kicking and scratching started up again. I guess it’s hard to get comfortable for that first egg.

Hilda and I had planned to change the wood chips in the coop for the last time before winter. We decided we’d best wait until Kirsty left the nest box on her own accord. We went to the garden to continue with the clean up. My goal for the day was to get all the landscape cloth up. I soon remembered that I’d have to roll up the drip irrigation as well. Bah. It is easier to take it up than it is to put it down, but either way, it’s putzy and annoying.

Just before lunch, we saw that all four of the Buff Orpingtons were in the chicken run. Sure enough, there was one brown egg in the middle nesting box. Hooray! 

Kirsty's first egg, left, and a standard large egg from the grocery, right.

Hilda had the egg for lunch. It was delicious. It was big for a pullet egg. I put it next to a grocery store large egg for comparison. I suspect that the Buff Orpington eggs, when the hens get the hang of laying, will be extra large or jumbo.

Hilda says she has seen Lizette and one of the Welsummer do the squat of sexual receptivity. Hopefully more hens will start laying soon. It’s been more than a week since Kirsty started squatting.

We did get all the drip irrigation and landscape cloth off of the garden. Predictably, my bending-over muscles are quite sore today. Still, it was nice to cross that off the list after at least 6 weeks.