We got our chicks on 4/10 and they were about 3 days old. Yesterday we got our first egg from our Red Comet, Anna! Funny how exciting one little egg can be, but it represents a lot of hard work on our part! We were given an Old English bantam hen from another person on this forum and she was already laying when we got her so this isn't technically our first egg, but it's the first from the original flock. The bantam egg is on the left and our Red Comet's egg is on the right.
The first egg is special in many ways, and the combs and wattles on all hens grow just before starting to lay, the wattles and cone help keep the chickens blood cool as they do not sweat, and producing an egg is hard work.
Easter Eggers!! A couple of first eggs from my ladies in this baker's dozen. I held off eating them so I could collect enough to fill a container.
I would say the road island red, they are knonw for maturing early, BR & orpington matrue a little older and the australorp even later.First time chicken owners, we have had our 5 chickens for 16 weeks now and we finally got our first egg that we found this morning. We are so very excited... it actually threw our whole morning off and we almost got the kids off to school late. My daughter ended up eating breakfast in the car and my son went to school with his hair sticking straight up!! Oh my. Anyway I have questions!!!
First off we don't know which one of these lovely ladies laid this egg... I have read that all 5 of ours will probably be giving us some shade of brown. I guess it really doesn't matter too much who laid it but can any of you tell what breed may have laid it? We have a buff orpington, australorp, 2 barred rocks, and a RIR.
Next we have nesting boxes in the coop but I actually found the egg on the ground in the corner of the coop beside the dresser we turned into nesting boxes, how do you suggest we get them to lay in the boxes? Because if they lay on the ground all the time our 5 kiddos that do the chores may end up smashing the eggs... they aren't always observant. Another thing is that all our chickens are the same age, do you think we will start getting eggs on a regular basis now that 1 laid an egg? How long will it take for the eggs to get to the actual size that they will be... I'm sure you can tell by the picture that it is much smaller than an average sized store bought egg. I think that's all my questions.
Most of all we are soooo very excited. We have worked hard to keep these girls happy for the past 16 weeks, we actually almost lost the brown one but we managed to save her and we are so glad. We've only had them for 4 months but they are part of the family now and we love them!!
Renee
