We are squarely back into farm fresh egg season and couldn’t be happier!!  Honestly we have gotten out of the egg eating habit over the winter when we only had store bought eggs available to us (yes, we could provide artificial light over the winter to trick our hens’ bodies into continual egg laying, but we prefer letting God’s rhythm’s work for He is Wise!).

I had gotten out of the habit of checking the nesting box, too.  Why would I if they aren’t laying.  One of the girls wanted to check the nesting box, so we did. And to our surprise there were 10 eggs in there!  We had no idea how long they have been in there, and while freshly laid eggs have a long shelf live, we decided to forgo this firstly discovered batch.

Now we are getting approximately three eggs a day from our four hens!  What a lovely surprise.  Can you say “Spring Veggie Frittata and Spinach Quiche”?  Bring on the Spring!

Luke 11:12

“Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?

With they daylight hours waning, our hens are down to providing us yet a single egg per day.  Some of the eggs are small.  But on occasion we are blessed with an extra large egg.  This one from the other day dwarfs the others, and is so large it doesn’t even really fit into our large egg carton.  I’m looking forward to cracking open what I believe to be a double yolk egg for my spinach and cheddar omelette breakfast.

It’s quite amazing that little girls can take to chickens as pets as readily as these girls have.  Don’t get me started on the mess they can make in the backyard, but it is refreshing to have pets that don’t shed in the house and will actually produce something edible, unlike our beloved pet cat or dog (not trying to take anything away from our fur-babies!!).  The four main hens are kicking out about three eggs per day presently.

The younger hen that we introduced to the flock, New Chick, isn’t old enough to lay just yet.  But we are extremely pleased that the main hens are not picking on New Chick too badly.  They aren’t thick as thieves just yet, but as she strengthens and grows, it is our sincere hope that New Chick will be fully integrated into our small flock.

In the picture below, our Steeler fan Chloe is introducing Blondie, our alpha-hen, to a baby bird camped out in our compost area.  What a neat treat to see this baby bird up close.  Soon after the introduction, the baby bird hopped away never to be seen again.

The girls have found two eggs in the yard today!  Our fist ever.  We are all very excited here in Humbleville.  Perhaps I should have anticipated this and opened up the nesting boxes earlier.  Perhaps they’ll take right to it now that we’ve opened it up to them.

Why were the nesting boxes closed off?  Chickens like to lay their eggs in a nice, neat place.  Not one where they were sleeping and pooping.  Therefore I took a couple of pieces of scrap plywood we had around the suburban homestead, and we had that area of the coop blocked off.

Presently we are also in the process of integrating a new hen into our young flock.  We’ll share more about that in a future post in the not too distant future.  These last two days, I have been allowing New Chick to run in the main pen area during the day, and the other four hens continue to have access to our whole back yard.  This might need to change now that we are getting eggs.  I don’t think we want to block off their access to the nesting boxes throughout the day now.

Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Of the five chicks we brought home on Good Friday, there is one we suspect being a rooster.  Three of the five chicks were Buff Orpingtons.  In this picture below we see the suspected rooster, affectionately named Roo, next to another Buff Orpington.  Obviously Roo has a much bigger comb and waddle.  Additionally we will get a series of weak cock-a-doodle-doos in the morning from Roo.  I’m so glad it isn’t a robust crow because our motto is … If it crows, it goes.

One of my friends who has a life long experience with chickens is giving us hope that Roo may yet be a hen.  She noted the tail posture of Roo.  It isn’t up like rooster like to do.  Also, Roo doesn’t seem to be developing spurs.  We probably have a couple of months or so before we will know for sure … but what do you think?  Is Roo a rooster or a hen?

So we’ve had chicks in our house for nearly a month, and we are amazed at how quickly these chicks grew from little chicken babies into teenagers! The girls of HumblevilleUSA are having a blast playing with and bonding with our five potential egg layers. See the three buff orpingtons, a rhode island red and a silver wyandotte entertain our three girls.

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