First egg this week

[Purple32]

I was over the moon 5 days ago as we got our first ever egg from one of our Orpington's

, however it has raised some questions as follows.

She starts acting strange before she lays her egg like she does not know if she is coming or going or what she should be doing and going in and out of the hen house scratching around. Once the deed is done she walks off quite content.

I understand that it must be still a strange experience to laying eggs (Ouch!!

), will she continue to go through this every day or will she settle in time?

At the moment her eggs have been quite small although she did lay a monster of an egg on the second day. is it normal for the size to vary.

Any advice would be welcome.

 

[fordmommy]

Yes. Size will vary for a while and in my limited experience, my big eggs have been double yolkers.

And yes. Give it some time and she will settle down. That in and out thing drives me nuts. It's like, "Just go have the egg and be done with it!" But they will figure it out and then they don't do that so much. And it won't take as long either.

 

[Purple32]

If the big egg might be a double yolker I'm gonna stash that one away to have for myself.

I'm glad to here she will settle down in time as my other Orpington is due to start laying any day now also and it would be even more confusing for them both at it at the same time going in and out of the hen house.
As for my poor little Cochin she would be sat there thinking that I have introduced her to a home for mentally unstable hens!!!

 

[Kat'sChicks]

Isn't it eggciting??? My silkie's been giving me eggs for 6 months now, but I've been eagerly awaiting my first egg(s) from my BO girls. They're 19 weeks yesterday. Hubby and I returned from a late brunch and I walked out back to see the kids as usual. While walking toward the coops, one of the girls came running out singing the egg song, and my silkie roo added his version to it...too funny! Hubby and my son laughed and so did I, as several have been doing this for a couple of weeks now. Just because I always look in the coops hoping to find an agg, I did again, and here's what I found. I got all excited and bounced around and proceeded to carry it over to the rest of the girls to remind them that THIS is what I expect to start finding. It's not large, but it's her first egg so I didn't expect it to be. The second pic is the new egg on the left with a silkie egg on the right....again, it's small, but I don't care. It's perfect and I'm over the moon. Life is good!

 

[Purple32]

OMG! half an egg.

I promise that these pics are not a set up in any way, 1 of my Orpingtons decided to lay this on the path

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A proper egg had spilled out of it so I gan only guess that there had been a membrain of some sort where the shell had been missing.

She has layed some normal eggs since although not every day as she has only just started laying. Has anyone else seen anything like this?

 

[newchicksnducks]

Was the half egg actually laid that way? Or is it possible on of your girls has become an egg eater and has eaten the egg and part of the shell?

 

[Purple32]

Hi,
yes the egg came out that way and the straight edge is just that it is very smooth

.
The shell was quite soft that hardened over a few hours, the yolk and white that had appeared to have spilled out of the shell was all in tact, there was no sign that any of the girls had pecked at any of the egg.

I don't know how common this is to get only half an egg shell, I wish I had taken a pic as the had been found, however, we were just gob smacked at the discovery