So the chickens (Sunny, Kiwi, and Olive) turned 20 weeks old yesterday. And today we were graced with….our first egg! We were thrilled of course–and it might be why the girls were so excited this morning at 7:15. They were cooing and squawking every 15 minutes on the dot until about 8:30 or so. I just wrote it off as being annoying and went back to sleep. We’re not sure but we think that this is Kiwi’s egg since she is the most mature/aggressive (Sunny can’t even eat until Kiwi has had her fill or else she gets pecked). So Sunny and Olive will probably start laying in the next few days or so too. And then? Then we can expect almost 2 dozen eggs a week until the beginning of December and then again starting January.
I’m thinking that it might be fun to give some “chicken and egg” facts based off of the things I’ve learned:
- There is no nutritional difference between brown eggs and white eggs (or any other color). An egg’s color is determined by the color of the hen’s ears.
- Hens lay one egg at a time and generally about one a day except in the winter months (some breeds)
- Hens don’t need Roosters to lay eggs–only to lay fertilized eggs (and we have no desire breed chicks)
- In most cities it is legal to have up to 3 hens
- If you refrigerate eggs right after they are laid they’ll last about 6-8 weeks. A rule of thumb is that for every hour they are left unrefrigerated is one day less that they’ll keep
And now some notes on our girls. They love bread! They also love our scrap vegetables and fruit like kiwi, grapes, tomatoes, and squash. Since we’re vegetarian it’s obviously important for us to feed the girls vegetarian feed. Most feed that you find at the hardware store has ground up chicken pieces in the feed! Yuck. Luckily we found one place right outside of Baton Rouge called Dodge City Feed Store that carries veggie feed.
