Fresh eggs!!!!!!!

           There are 3 main reasons that you have chickens or are thinking about getting them. Meat, eggs, and show (or in our case pets). Right now we are going to talk about egg layers. A hen starts laying eggs when she is about 6 months old. The first few eggs will be considerably smaller and misshapen compared to the eggs the hen will start to lay in anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
   
            Once we got an egg smaller than a robin's egg and, because we wanted to keep it because it was so cool, we decided to "blow it." So I got my needle and my steady hand (Actually, its not so steady, my hands shake like a leaf when I  try to concentrate) and I proceeded to poke a hole in the egg and got the surprise of a lifetime when I was about to blow out the insides. There was no insides! The chicken had laid a shell. Then my steady hand went a little crazy and accidentally smashed this once in a lifetime egg and I was really sad. End of story. Now lets get back to business before I tear up.

            Anyway, the hen will continue lay eggs for a few years but at around the 3rd year, the amount of eggs she lays will  decrease. A chicken usually lives to be at least 5 yrs. old (If no animals or sicknesses get to it first) and some have been known to live to be as old as 15!
          
            MYTH: You have to have a rooster to get eggs.  Actually, your hen can lay eggs no matter what, but without a rooster, the eggs won't be fertile. That means that no cute little chicks will hatch from your eggs if if a rooster does not inhabit your yard. (For some, this may be a good thing.)
         
             Good egg layers lay an egg about every 26 to 30 hours. The chicken feels the urge to lay an egg probably the same way a human feels they need to go to the bathroom. The hen will literally search the yard to find a safe egg laying spot and often overlook the nesting box you have carefully crafted for them to find a better spot nestled in between your cucumber and tomatoes (After, of course they eat all the little baby cucumbers) and spend a full half hour constructing their new nest to perfection. Then they might spend another 15-30 minutes laying their egg. I have been lucky enough to get there just as the egg comes out (Well, some people may hesitate a little at that "lucky" statement)  of what we refer to as "the Egg-hole" yes, thats what we call it. (Go ahead, laugh all you want, but its actually a pretty accurate name. I mean, we are talking about a hole that an egg comes out of here, right?)

 Worst case scenario (Actually, its not that bad): You found a hidden egg laying spot with tons of eggs and you have no idea how long they have been there for, meaning you don't know if they are still edible. There is in fact, a very simple solution to your huge problem. Get a clear cup and fill it with room temperature water. Put the eggs in one by one. If the egg sinks, go ahead, eat it raw (DONT!!!!! I WAS JUST JOKING MA!) What I meant to say was cook it first, but it is definitely edible. If the egg floats, or hesitates before it sinks slowly to the bottom, it is bad. Throw it out immediately unless you want your house smelling like rotten eggs! We do this routinely once or twice every two weeks and throw out all suspicious eggs.

Two freshly laid eggs, small compared to store bought eggs, but "oh the joy" you get when you find them.

The chickens lay eggs in the nesting box most of the time but they occasionally lay in crazy places such as the garden beds, bushes, in the grill basket, flower pots and other weird places. (Some of which we have not yet found)

Here is one of the crazy places I was talking about. This chicken (Eggy) laid about 14 eggs in this place before my dad spotted her flying up there and wondered why. This is a honeysuckle vine/bush that grew on top of our 4 foot fence so she's about 5 feet up there. Did I mention chickens love high places?

 

Here is another crazy egg laying spot Ditto (yes, her name is Ditto) has constructed in one of our fenced in garden beds. You may be wondering why she is in a garden bed we obviously didn't want her in, well the answer is: chickens can fly. Do you want to know something funny, Ditto and Eggy share the same father, our rooster Lou-Lou who we had to give to a farm because he was chasing us, and wouldn't stop no matter how much we threatened him. 

This is a beautiful assortment of our chicken's eggs. The Rhode Island Red eggs (the 4 brown eggs on the right side) are medium sized eggs, but as the chicken matures, the eggs will probably become larger. (our Rhode Island Red's just started laying eggs a few days ago!) 

mmmmmm... eggs! Every once in awhile you may get a double or even triple yolk. We had quite a surprise when we got two double yolk eggs in a row from one chicken!

I hope all of these helpful hints have been helpful. Be sure to check out my other post as well, it covers some different information. If you have any questions feel free to comment and I will try to answer your questions. 

your chicken loving friend,

Iris

SOURCES:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_years_do_chickens_lay_eggs_for

my chickens

Inside "The Lodge." In the upper left corner is the nesting box. The piece of wood is a perch. Chickens feel safer on a perch even if it is only a couple feet of the ground. Most of our chickens sleep on the perch. The food and water dishes have to be refilled almost every day.

"The Lodge" as we call it from the outside. 6 of our 15 chickens sleep in here at night while the other 9 sleep in our Eglu chicken coop. 

The Eglu!!!!! the perfect backyard chicken coop for 3-5 hens.

Your probably wondering if chickens are just dirty animals all around, and although they don't bathe in water (At least they wouldn't choose to) they do keep fairly clean. They need a nice pile of dry dirt to "dust" in. They LOVE to flop around in the dirt to get bugs off (Such as chicken lice, humans can't get them thank god.)  I think it also cools them down (Have you ever rolled around in the dirt, I have and it was the best experience I ever had until my mom spotted me. Luckily the chickens ma's can't complain because they do it to.) This is a picture of our beloved chicken named Silkie. (Her breed is also a Silkie, we are so creative with our name choices, yes, every one of our 15 chickens has a name.) We have three others that look exactly like her, except she is always the most dirty. We can't seem to figure out why.

This is my mom Anne feeding the hens taco shells. (Did i mention they pretty much eat anything?) Surprisingly 14 of the 15 chickens are on this picture. One of the silkies has a very hard time seeing and it was halfway across the yard making a lot of noise. The black and white one (3rd from the right) is named Harvey. She (Yes she, but we just call her a him.) is the flock leader, or boss.

This is Silkie (shown above dusting and looking particularly messy,) gaping, not surprisingly, because of the 103 degrees temperatures! 

I bet your thinking what the heck do I do with them in the night it must be so much work to get them to go in at night, I mean its not like they go in to their house when it gets dark... hold it right there cowboy, they do!!!!!! Every night (After they have gotten used to their new home) when the sun goes down, they slowly stop what they are doing and sleepily trudge into their little house and go to bed. All you have to do is go outside and lock them in (Unless you have an over population problem, then just let the neighborhood fox get them for you) and in the morning all you gotta do is go let them out (Make sure the sun is up, we had a very traumatic experience once. Who would've guessed a fox is still out and about at five thirty in the morning, we sure didn't, and lost 5 hens because of it!) and check their food and water. By check I mean if the food dish is empty, you fill it up. Chickens are not like dogs in that way, they will only eat if their hungry (Which is always) so it is best to keep their dish refilled at all times.  If their water dish is empty (Which it should NEVER be) you sure as heck better fill it up, especially if it is hot out. Chickens like all living things that I'm aware of, can get dehydrated and die. Yes, not enough water is one of the MANY things chickens can die from. One more thing before I go. In the summer when it is hot do not call 911 if your chicken is walking around with its mouth open. (For that matter, you should never really call 911 about a chicken. I'm pretty sure even well mannered cops would laugh at you) the mouth open thing is called gaping, it is like panting for a dog. If they are gaping though, do check their water supply, please.

I will write more info on these matters in future days but if you have any immediate concerns, please feel welcome to comment on this and I will try my best to answer your questions.

Your chicken loving friend,

Iris