Sapphire Olive Egger Egg Laying Journey

[Minanora]

Getting a little more consistent! Got another green egg today! Tomorrow I'll set up the chooks camera to watch the nest.
Also I need to add my nesting box carpet.... Eggs are getting cracked a little from them pushing all of the pine shavings to the sides and laying directly on the plywood. However I'm happy that they're all laying in the box! Huzzah!

 

[Minanora]

Got another green egg today!

Someone laid an egg without a shell while asleep on the roost last night. I didn't get to it before they did, so I found the membrane and most of the egg innards on the coop floor.

 

[Minanora]

Today was the biggest laying day so far. I got three eggs today! Guess what?! All brown!

 

[Minanora]

Two more eggs today! The ladies are picking up the pace. They're all eating crushed egg shells, so much that I had to go buy oyster shell for them and finally pick up some 18% layer feed. They're about to run out of the raiser feed anyway and with all of them squatting and getting eggs daily, I think it's safe to make the switch.

I put the carpet down in the box, eggs are rolling as designed so long as they don't scruff up the carpet. I'm going to attach it with some velcro. we'll see how it holds. Worst case I'll glue it down and just rip it out when I need to.

 

[Minanora]

Yesterday there were 6 eggs. I'm thinking that one was on the floor of the coop yesterday. Just because I don't think it's possible that all of them are laying yet.

Two of the six eggs I recovered yesterday had thin shells and were broken before I got to them. Out of all the eggs I got, only one was green.

 

[Minanora]

Well, I talked to the feed store where I got my chicks; they are indeed from Hoovers. So I'm either super unlucky or they're full of it with their "roughly 5% could lay brown eggs..."

I'm getting 5 eggs almost every other day. On off days a get between 1 and 3. These girls are cranking out the eggs. Everyone is laying in the box. I still need to build the second box... Not that that'll change the fact that they all lay in the same box.

On a side note, I got two different green eggs today! So 2 green, 4 brown. Today we got 6 eggs total!

 

[olilandy]

Today was the biggest laying day so far. I got three eggs today! Guess what?! All brown! View attachment 3597767

OMG! I have two SOE that are roughly 20 weeks old and this whole time I've been thinking they are not laying when they actually could have just not been giving me green eggs! I'm so sad!!!!

 

[Minanora]

So the flock is starting to get the hang of laying. I do still get an occasional soft shelled egg from them laying while they roost; but that's slowing down now. All of the eggs I get in the box are good, very hard shells. My smallest girl, Tinki, of course she's my favorite... she appears to be egg bound. She's only laid one egg so far. Her tail is down, she's walking odd and does not run around like the rest of the girls. Going to work with her today to see if we can get her back in the swing of things. I am praying we don't lose her. I'm way too attached to this chicken.

 

[Minanora]

Here we are in February. One of my SOE girls is almost done with a molt.... like, almost a full blown molt; then two others had mini molts as well.... I'm getting between 1 and 3 eggs a day, usually 1 or 2. I have 4 more chicks that I got on Friday; not SOE chicks, so my adventure is about to totally change. However, I still only have 1 hen that lays green eggs... they are medium in size, and the rest lay brown eggs. The brown egg layers are large grade.

The hens are great scratchers, eat lots of weeds and bugs. They love treats and will follow me everywhere. But they don't like being picked up. lol

 

[Minanora]

Here we are in February. One of my SOE girls is almost done with a molt.... like, almost a full blown molt; then two others had mini molts as well.... I'm getting between 1 and 3 eggs a day, usually 1 or 2. I have 4 more chicks that I got on Friday; not SOE chicks, so my adventure is about to totally change. However, I still only have 1 hen that lays green eggs... they are medium in size, and the rest lay brown eggs. The brown egg layers are large grade.

The hens are great scratchers, eat lots of weeds and bugs. They love treats and will follow me everywhere. But they don't like being picked up. lol

Also we lost that one hen. I have 5 SOE hens from the original 6. Tinki died a day after my post in August 2023.