Can you eat the first egg?

[pgpoultry]

I never knew which were the first eggs with 3 of my Brahma girls. They laid eggs in secret places and promptly tried to brood them. Found each one of them sitting on 10-15 eggs, so I never knew which ones they laid first!

Sandie

 

[MakNugget]

I was going to blow out my egg but I wanted to see it in all its glory so I carefully cracked it and saved the shell.

It's so GOOD... and then I hit the yolk and it's OH SO GOOD!

 

[chickp]

I am so glad other people have eaten theirs! We found our first one this morning but it was cold. Can we still eat it? It hasn't been there longer than overnight....we checked on them yesterday afternoon and then early this morning there it was! It was in the 40s overnight here.

It is SO crazy exciting to find one!

 

[bburn]

Eat the egg.

 

[strangefamily]

our little girls turned six month oct 3 and we got our first egg about an hour ago! it is very exciting!

thank u for all these great comments!

 

[Mtn Laurel]

The first egg = Best Tasting Egg Ever!!

 

[whiskey54]

When we got our four beautiful girls we were told they were 12 weeks old - we got a delightful shock this morning as we got our first two eggs (were not expecting any until next week). One was broken (looked like it was a bit squashed). The shell on both was very soft and looked like they were filled with water so definitely not eating these two - is this normal?

 

[whiskey54]

We decided to scramble the egg and feed it back to the hens.

The next day we modified the nests to provide individual spaces so no eggs that day.

Yesterday they all checked out the spaces and went round and round until most of the straw was kicked out leaving a hard surface, later I replaced the straw.

Later on I decreetly watched one of my girls doing this, she then began nesting, after a little bit up jumped another hen and the first promptly stood up and I heard a "Plop", after she left the nest I checked and she left us an egg but it was cracked due to dropping on the hard surface.

Today we just got a DOUBLE YOLKER (amazing for being only the 3rd day of laying) but it too was cracked due to all the straw being moved to revel the hard surface.

I think they are pretty happy with the new layout and I realise that they are still learning but any suggestions about the straw removal would be helpful.

Thanks

 

[pnutj58]

So it IS okay to eat the first egg?

I've read about small, not-so-well-formed first eggs, but Tillie's first egg was perfect. Tillie and Hillary are Dark Brahmas. Tillie is about nine months old and gave me her first egg on January 5th. Hillary is seven months old so I don't expect to be getting anything from her for another couple months. By the way, they get no heating and no artificial light. So I was really surprised to see a first egg in the dead of winter.

And thoroughly tickled, too.

 

[drjulian]

We decided to scramble the egg and feed it back to the hens.

The next day we modified the nests to provide individual spaces so no eggs that day.

Yesterday they all checked out the spaces and went round and round until most of the straw was kicked out leaving a hard surface, later I replaced the straw.

Later on I decreetly watched one of my girls doing this, she then began nesting, after a little bit up jumped another hen and the first promptly stood up and I heard a "Plop", after she left the nest I checked and she left us an egg but it was cracked due to dropping on the hard surface.

Today we just got a DOUBLE YOLKER (amazing for being only the 3rd day of laying) but it too was cracked due to all the straw being moved to revel the hard surface.

I think they are pretty happy with the new layout and I realise that they are still learning but any suggestions about the straw removal would be helpful.

Thanks

You can avoid the hard surface issue by putting "woody pet" or "equine fresh" in the bottom of the nest. These are compress sawdust used for horse stalls. Dampen it a little an the pellets will swell up to a wonderful, absorbent, soft padding for the nest. Next put some straw on top of it. We have not had any cracked eggs using this method. You can get the compress pine sawdust products at Tractor Supply.