new chicken Owner having lots of fun

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acountkel

acountkel

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6 Years
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Hey Everyone! We got our chickens in February. We have 5 hens and a rooster. They are all Rhode Island Reds. Today, we discovered 7 eggs behind some bushes this morning. This has prompted many questions...Here it goes...Can we eat them? Do we wash them immediately or wait till right before cooking? Can the hen change her location to the nesting boxes? We found an egg this morning in a box so we think we have 2 hens that have stated laying. We put some plastic eggs and some golf balls in the boxes.
We free range our chickens and we have had a lot of fun watching them and learning about them. One of the funniest things is listening to the rooster practice his crowing. It's a hilarious sound!!
Would love to hear your comments.....
 
Greetings from Kansas and
welcome-byc.gif
! Great to have you aboard! As far as eating those eggs go, I wouldn't - no telling how ling they've been in that hiding place - to me salmonella isn't worth the risk. To make the hens use their nesting boxes I lock mine in their coop and run for a few days to get them used to where home base is. And the fake eggs are a good idea. Even now with my girls - with the weather getting hot some of them don't like to lay in the coop. I've noticed a dip in egg production lately and this a.m. heard the egg song coming from the hedges in front of the house. That's when I knew a couple of them had been laying elsewhere (my cats will enjoy those later today). Tomorrow they are going to "jail" so they will use the nesting boxes! About washing eggs - unless they are soiled, a lot of folks don't wash them. They have a protective coating on them that if washed off, allows bacteria in. I don't wash mine unless they are poopy. Good luck to you!
 
Hello and welcome....so glad you joined BYC

redsoxs gives the best advice. Good luck to you and enjoy your future eggs !
 
Day 2 of egg laying....When we let the chickens out, I found a small egg in one of the nesting boxes. I think this is from our new layer...Later this morning, I heard one of the hens squawking...the sound similar to the one from yesterday on the back patio. We went to the coop and found another hen. 2 chickens were up there. I think it was the new layer and the hen who was laying the eggs on the patio. It's almost like the one hen was showing the other where to go.
Thank you all for the warm welcome and the advice. We did not eat the eggs. We had fun cracking them open to see whats inside. One of them had a double yoke
 
Hey all of my new chicken friends. I have question. Once a chicken begins laying eggs, do the eggs get bigger and then maintains a certain size? Or do they vary?
 

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