This is Waffles. My husband calls her Lennie because she is huge compared to our other chickens and she killed a mouse. The entire family got to witness it. She was quite vicious and she didn't even eat it. But despite her tendency to kill solely for sport, we love our Waffles and find her the most amusing of our flock.
About a week ago, Waffles celebrated her 1st birthday. She still had not graced us with her first egg. We all waited very anxiously, for many months now, as I'm sure all of you have when waiting on a pullets first egg. When all of the older girls were in the middle of their moult last fall, Waffles comb and waddles began to deepen in color and to grow bigger. What a striking young woman she was becoming. Surely she was going to start laying eggs any day!
Day after day, week after week, month after month......... No egg from Waffles. I just gave up on her. Maybe some hens never laid eggs. She is so curious and entertaining we would never dream of letting her go even if she never produced. Besides, she is my best bug eater and does have a job to do in the garden. We laughed and joked that if she ever did lay an egg, we would never miss it because she is so large. It would probably be like an ostrich egg!
Yesterday I looked in the box and lo and behold, there was a tiny cream colored egg! Everyone else lays brown. Could it be? No..... really? It was SO SMALL!!! Smaller than any of the other girls first eggs and some of them are half her size! Waffles came runnin; she was definitely interested in the contents of the box. She had never been interested in such matters before. I had decided, months ago, that we would never get an egg from her, so I just stood in disbelief while my mind processed the fact that this was indeed Waffles egg in my hand. My husband confirmed later that day that he had witnessed her in the box early that morning.
Here we are, proud to show off Waffles first (tiny) egg, which took over a year to arrive!
About a week ago, Waffles celebrated her 1st birthday. She still had not graced us with her first egg. We all waited very anxiously, for many months now, as I'm sure all of you have when waiting on a pullets first egg. When all of the older girls were in the middle of their moult last fall, Waffles comb and waddles began to deepen in color and to grow bigger. What a striking young woman she was becoming. Surely she was going to start laying eggs any day!
Day after day, week after week, month after month......... No egg from Waffles. I just gave up on her. Maybe some hens never laid eggs. She is so curious and entertaining we would never dream of letting her go even if she never produced. Besides, she is my best bug eater and does have a job to do in the garden. We laughed and joked that if she ever did lay an egg, we would never miss it because she is so large. It would probably be like an ostrich egg!
Yesterday I looked in the box and lo and behold, there was a tiny cream colored egg! Everyone else lays brown. Could it be? No..... really? It was SO SMALL!!! Smaller than any of the other girls first eggs and some of them are half her size! Waffles came runnin; she was definitely interested in the contents of the box. She had never been interested in such matters before. I had decided, months ago, that we would never get an egg from her, so I just stood in disbelief while my mind processed the fact that this was indeed Waffles egg in my hand. My husband confirmed later that day that he had witnessed her in the box early that morning.
Here we are, proud to show off Waffles first (tiny) egg, which took over a year to arrive!
