Found the first egg! And the second...and third, and fourth...

[ninjapoodles]

Actually, I found EIGHT today.

I KNEW I'd heard the "I laid an egg!" sounds from at least one hen, but I could never find any eggs. So today, when I was outside, I heard, "buh-KAWWWK!" and went immediately to the henhouse. There, in the far corner, waaaaaay back out of sight and UNDERNEATH the nesting boxes, I saw a couple of eggs. I had to get down on my hands and knees (in chicken-litter, yes. whee.) and reach under to gather them, and here's what I wound up with:

My daughter begged, beseeched and cajoled me into adding one of the little eggs to the Buff Orpington eggs from hinkjc that I just set last night, so we marked it with a crayon and stuck it in there.

Since I don't have any idea how old they are, I cracked the rest to feed to the dogs. And bonus--they're fertile! Skee-Lo is gettin' the job done.

 

[scrapmom5]

AWESOME!

We thought our duck was just really slow maturing until we drained our pond and found 16 eggs. That same day my kids found a hidden nest of 8 more eggs. Somedays it seems like easter around here. LOL

 

[tygab]

very cool! do you give the dogs raw eggs? I don't have dogs but is this good for them?
why do you think they were below the nest boxes?

We hung our nest boxes today after my father-in-law brought them down (he made them and they look awesome). Still could be a few weeks before eggs but maybe they'll get the idea.

 

[redoak]

congrats on your first eggs

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
I have no idea why they were laid on the ground, but maybe because the shavings were thick and clean there, or because it was secluded. Hopefully I've duplicated that setting now.

I've fed the dogs raw eggs as part of their regular diet for more than 10 years, now. Some people don't feed raw eggs because they say the avodin in the egg white binds to biotin and prevents its absorption. Yes and no. What keeps that from being a concern is that there is more than enough biotin in the egg YOLK to make up for what's bound by the white. So as long as you're feeding the whole egg, you're not going to cause an imbalance. And even if you were feeding ONLY raw egg whites, you'd have to feed several a day for a long time to cause any sort of biotin deficiency.

Of course, if fears of salmonella concern you, you might want to cook the eggs first. We eat plenty of products with raw eggs in them, with no ill effects, but it's up to each individual to decide what's right for them. In any case, whole eggs are a nice complete protein to feed to a dog.

 

[MissPrissy]

WooHoo! congrats on those eggs.

I feed my dogs raw eggs and yogurt. they love their treats. On sunday mornings they both get their own scrambled eggs.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
Between the dogs and the chickens and the turkeys and the cats, I can't imagine ever having "extra" eggs...though with the number of pullets we have, it's sure to happen eventually!

 

[sweetcorn]

Congrats on your eggs !! Can't wait to get my first ones from my new babies !

edited because I can't type , * sigh *

 

[Mrs MIA]

Collecting eggs is my favorite time of the day...

 

[JennsPeeps]

Congrats!!!!