easter eggs

My chickens did a great job and laid all colors of eggs. I don't need to dye them for the Easter basket! White, brown speckled, blue, and green. I boiled up a half dozen for deviled egg Easter appetizers. I'll put them on a platter with my garden arugula.

today's harvest

Today's harvest is fresh endive, a Meyer lemon, and a couple eggs.

eggs!

Today, for the first time, all four of my hens laid an egg! Yeah!!!

I haven't had any eggs for almost 4 months! After loosing a hen to a local hawk or coyote last summer, I purchased two young hens (pullets) in late August. The new chickens apparently disrupted things so much that my two one year old hens stopped laying. It took a couple months for things to settled down. Once everyone started getting along, I think it was too dark for them to lay. My run is covered with tarps to keep it dry, and I suppose it was pretty dark underneath.

My husband figured out how to solve the darkness problem. He built a glass roof for the run! About a month ago my two youngest chickens started laying. They've each been laying an egg about every other day since then. Last week, my one year old Brahma, Bertha, started laying. And today I finally have a blue egg from Ginger, my Auracana.

I will post photos soon of the fancy new coop with a glass covered run.

chickens and eggs

We are doing some renovations upstairs of our new house where there's a good view of my chicken coop. The construction crew tells me they've seem a big red tailed hawk fly down and perch on my chicken coop a couple of times.

Of all places! Can't he perch on some bird feeder or a random small tree?!! He might as well put in his order for a chicken lunch!

The red tails out here are BIG! I've been impressed. They must be better fed than the ones in more urban Belmont. Stronger and better fed.... and able to carry off large chickens for lunch....

Usually, I let me hens run free an hour or so in the afternoon sun. After this conversation with the construction guys, I only let them out briefly today when I could watch them carefully. The problem was, it was such a nice day and the girls really wanted to run for a while. After 20 min, I started trying to get them back into their coop and it took me a good 20 min. They did NOT want to go.

So, the eggs in the picture above are what the hens lay in about 5 days now. Since all 3 hens are laying, finally, I usually get 6 brown eggs per week from Penny (Black Australorp), 5 blue/green eggs per week from Ginger (Auracana), and 3 giant pink eggs a week from Bertha (Light Brahma). Bertha has just started to lay. So that's 14 egg a week. Plenty for us, and we're giving some away to anyone who leaves a car with open windows on the driveway ;-) Tomorrow I'm planning to make mushroom quiche, and then, Friday for guests, I'll make some deviled eggs of all different sizes.

valentine eggs

I put together 4 blue eggs and a Meyer lemon as a gift for a friend on Valentines Day.

one of these eggs is not like the others...

So, I've collected many pink-brown eggs and many green-blue eggs. In addition to these, I've found two specked brown eggs. I know Ginger, my Auracana, is laying the green-blue ones - because that's what Auracanas (Easter Eggers) do. I know Penny, my Black Astralorp, is laying the brown-pink ones because I saw her pop one out and pretty much caught it as it ejected (!). I don't know if Penny is the one laying the occasional speckled eggs or if maybe Bertha, my light Brahma, is laying them. A mystery....

Eight days, 2 laying hens, 10 eggs
Ginger 6 medium blue eggs and Penny 4 large brown eggs

fried fresh eggs for breakfast

We went with fried eggs, easy over, for breakfast yesterday. We noticed that the yolks were deeper orange in color than our usual store bought eggs. Also, the whites held together more. I thought they taster richer, but my husband thought they just tasted like eggs.

In the past 6 days, my three hens laid 8 eggs. Not bad.

four eggs so far

Both Ginger and Penny laid another egg today. Omelets on the menu here for the weekend. I'm looking forward to comparing the fresh eggs to store bought eggs. I've been told they are much better.

another egg

My second egg! This one is medium brown with a few dark speckles. Penny, my Black Australorp, is the one who lays that color egg. Yeah Penny! Penny's first egg is a quite a bit bigger than Ginger's first egg yesterday. Both eggs are probably a size that would be called "peewee".

an egg!!! an egg!!!

An egg, an egg!!! I am so excited! My chickens have laid their first egg.

I was busy all day today and, for the first time, didn't get out to the coop until very late. It was about 7 pm and dark, but the coop light was still on. The hens muttered as I came up, something about "where have you been" and "why didn't you bring us our leftovers this morning" or maybe it was more like "we're really glad to see you".

Anyway, they clucked and baaked and I did the usual check of the coop and THERE IT WAS! I've looked for an egg at least once a day since the end of November. I hardly knew what I was seeing.

Its a pale blueish-greenish egg - that would be one of Ginger's. She's an Araucana chicken. My brown hen. (My other two hens will eventually lay brown eggs.) Its a lot smaller than the extra-large store-bought eggs I had in the fridge.

I found the egg lying in the middle of the hen house, almost buried in the extra deep layer of fresh wood shavings and hay I put down a couple days ago. I'll have to tell Ginger she's supposed to lay in one of the nesting boxes. That's OK, I can work on explaining that to her now that she's an official "laying hen"!

I'll make sure to bring all the hens a special breakfast tomorrow!