Who else is waiting for that first egg?

[Chicken Strut]

my girls all seem to be laying but we have been having some goanna trouble.  We've been working on ways of keeping the goanna out of the chicken coup.....with limited success at present, but persisting.

Do goannas (lizards, I think - we don't have them here) eat the eggs then? Ugh! Frustrating!

 

[Foxysadie]

Oh man, 6 months is a long time. Congrats. I have 2 black australorps and waiting for any of my hens to lay... but they are 18 weeks old and although one is redder in the face than the other, they both don't have full blown comb and wattles. I guess I have to be very patient!

My Black Australorp laid her first egg at exactly 22 weeks, however my neighbor's BA's (from the same bunch of chicks), laid a good week and a half before she did. Have hope, you don't have much longer to wait.

 

[MeepMeeps]

Thanks, yours is a beauty!

 

[Chicken Strut]

Argh! Here is my BA at 16 weeks. With that tiny pink comb and those wee wattles, I think she's gonna be one of the 6-month layers. Oh, well - ! She is a sweetheart.

 

[Diney]

Oh man, 6 months is a long time. Congrats. I have 2 black australorps and waiting for any of my hens to lay... but they are 18 weeks old and although one is redder in the face than the other, they both don't have full blown comb and wattles. I guess I have to be very patient! 

My black aust was the first to lay at 19 weeks.

 

[vweers]

My Australorp didn't start laying until she was like 21 or 22 weeks old.

 

[HennaRose]

My Australorp was around 23, 24 weeks before she started laying. Give her time, 16 weeks is young for most breeds!

 

[HennaRose]

I have no first-hand experience with goannas because we don't have them here either, but they do eat wild birds and eggs, so chickens and chicken eggs are probably not outside the realm of possibilities.

 

[WVduckchick]

My Black Australorp laid her first egg at exactly 22 weeks, however my neighbor's BA's (from the same bunch of chicks), laid a good week and a half before she did. Have hope, you don't have much longer to wait.

She's gorgeous!!

Argh! Here is my BA at 16 weeks. With that tiny pink comb and those wee wattles, I think she's gonna be one of the 6-month layers. Oh, well - ! She is a sweetheart.

Such pretty girls! Something about black hens... so regal looking!

 

[chickendreams24]

Well we finally got our first egg yssterday. A soft shelled egg with some tissue or something coming off it from our favorite Isa Brown named Lily. We at first thought she was ill BC she seemed very lethargic and was just kinda standing in the yard. She wasn't making a noise or anything. The onoy think i could think is that one of our roos is over breeding her. Although we havent senn him breed her until yesterday. She is the only girl that has reached point of lay so far and it seems to have happened overnight. No egg song no squating that i saw. I was very worried but then while we were out there DH2B saw her lay it. We quickly went to where she was in the yard expecting a nice egg if I had seen pics of eggs one here that looked like that I would have been very shocked.

Sorry there are no pictures. As I was looking for something to grab it with Lily decided she's like to eat it(perhaps she has layed others and ate them) She was so intent upon eating it DH2B had to grab her while I grabbed it. I was surprised by how strange it felt. Well in true "me" form I then had a clumsy moment and dropped the egg right onto DH2B's boot where it broke open. I bent down and scooped everything I could up. Not wanting to have the chickens eat it. This included the yolk which upon further inspection in the house was fertile.