This question is not a mystery. I know the answer. The chicken comes before the egg.
Two of the four chickens are laying now. Rosie and Sarah. Rosie's eggs are slightly bigger and darker than Sarah's. I knew from reading the many chicken books I've accumulated over the past few months which ones were laying. There are some telltale signs. First one is the deep red color of their combs and wattles.
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| This is Rosie, my first layer. |
Second sign is that they get a little disheveled looking. Their normally shiny coat gets a little dull and dirty. They also do this strange little squatting thing when I approach them, but I haven't read anything about that yet.
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| The beautiful and smart-as-a-whip, Sarah, layer of the cutest little buff colored eggs. |
Third sign is that these gals can seriously chow down! They'll eat virtually anything I give them. But their favorites are fallen apples, nectarines and pears from our trees, corn cobs from our homegrown corn, some of which I left on the stalk too long so was only suitable for beaks, cherry tomatoes stolen from my struggling crop while I chase them shaking my fist, cucumber peals, and best of all, grub worms that I pull out of the compost bin for them. Yum yum.
They nearly always have their beaks in the ground, except of course when they are chasing either my daughter or me around the yard when we shake a container of hen scratch, (which we lovingly call "chicken crack") a mix of various bird seed and cracked corn.
Today I noticed only three birds were out wandering in the yard so I checked the coop. Rosie was nesting so I decided to shoot some photos of the action. It was exciting to witness a chicken actually laying an egg.
As you can see, she lifted herself up a bit and the feathers on her back separated and raised then suddenly "PLOP!" She panted a bit, scooted the egg around with her comb and wattled away. I quickly snatched up the warm egg.
A perfect egg. Tomorrow at around the same time of day, this will happen again.
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