Esmeralda, our four month old Barred Rock hen, laid her first egg yesterday! OK. I know there are about a gajillion “urban farm” blogs out there announcing the first eggs laid by their sweet backyard hens. But how could I not mention ours? It is SO beautiful. So pink and speckled and small.
You raise chicks, build them a coop, and then all of a sudden they actually lay eggs. I know it is the most common of biological occurrences, but it still strikes me as improbable, and wonderful, and even miraculous.
Thank you, Esmeralda!
Love the egg on plaid!
Egg-on-Plaid: the new black.
Be sure to guard your chickens. Critters ate all of ours. It was a sad day.
Thanks Tim. Yes, urban chicken-keeping requires great vigilance. We lost chickens in earlier flocks to both raccoons and feral ferrets. We spent a lot of time designing our new coop to be a veritable Chicken Guantanamo, and we’ll post our coop plans in downloadable format in the near future.
Hooray! I wish my neighbors would read the “gajillion” urban farm blogs… oh well. We keep on keeping on!
What a charming story and sweet photos! I just finished CROW PLANET and feel like I know Claire. : )
I felt the same excitement of ‘first egg days’ when I was raising parakeets and cockatiels. I could never sell any of them…gave a few away, which caused me horrible sorrow. All of my precious flock has passed away, but their memories are forever in my heart.
nice work, girls!
Lovely photo! I felt just as excited when the latest batch of pullets began laying as I did when the first ones I raised had… now, I’m giving eggs away because we can’t eat them fast enough:) We did a similar job on our coop, event to trenching around it and laying in rubble to discourage diggers; would love to allow greater ranging, but it would be a death sentence where we live. I am looking forward to seeing your plans.
Every first egg is a sensation and should be celebrated. Congratulations! We’d post about all of ours if we could. They are such beautiful, whole, elegant things.
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