Egg Knowledge

Now that we are up to six laying Hens (wahoo!) I wanted to give you guys a little more information about what I have learned so far about laying hens and the eggs in particular.

 Let’s start with the egg boxes. As mentioned in pervious posts, you want to make sure you have one egg box per 3-4 chickens. Cory built three into our coop so the girls have plenty of room to lay. Make sure you keep the bedding in there clean and fresh so when they lay, the eggs remain sanitary. Some other chicken owners suggested using straw in the egg boxes so the hens have something to nestle down into. They like to feel hidden when laying so that could be a good solution instead of having them venture off into the brush of the woods to lay (which one of our girls attempted to do when she first started laying.) We just use the pine shaving that we have in the rest of the coop currently. I just make sure they are changed out more frequently.

  The girls who are laying naturally just took to laying in the egg boxes. They are a little cramped looking and stay nice and dark which is what the chickens prefer. You will find a few random eggs out in the coop sometimes, or they will even lay outside in the lawn if they are having their “play time” which is fine.

  I also noticed, that once several of them are starting to lay, they tend to lay their eggs close to each other in the egg boxes. If you have a broody hen, they are known to roll all the eggs into one spot and sit on them to keep them warm. It’s a motherly instinct. Even though our eggs are not fertilized since we do not own a Rooster, sometime the hens will lay on the eggs for a while.

 After the girls have laid their eggs, particularly the Barred Rocks and the Buff Orpingtons they make a loud squawking noise. It is almost like they are sounding the alarms to let us know that they have laid their egg. Sometimes you can tell when they are about to lay because they will pace back and forth out of the egg box and make the same sound just a little quieter. Pacing is a common characteristic you will noticed when the hens are getting ready to lay. They will also try and seclude themselves from the group. This is how I noticed that the barred rock and the second buff orpington were about to lay their first eggs, I just had a hunch and I happened to be right! 

 The first eggs you receive from you hens could be smaller in size than what you are use to seeing. This will change over time as they become more mature. We were surprised when we saw that the White Leghorns eggs were normal in size when they started to lay.

  Also, White leghorns typically lay white eggs.  I believe they are one of the only white chickens that actually produce white eggs. All of our other hens should produce brown shelled eggs.

 Sometimes the eggs will have spots, be rough in texture, or have different color shells. That is all normal depending on what breed of chickens you have.

We have also noticed that the shells are thicker and harder than store bought eggs. Part of it has to do with the type of diet the chicken is on. If they have the benefit of being free-range on top of having great layer feed they have the opportunity to grab other nutrients from the ground that other chickens might not have.  Also, depending on how recent the eggs were laid (how fresh they are) can depict on how tough the shell will be to crack. If they are fresh out of the egg box the membrane inside the shell has not had time to detach from the shell inside so it will be a little harder to break the shell. Nothing too noticeable though. If the shells are hard and thick the chicken is in good health!  As the chicken ages, the shells may become thinner.. but I am hoping that is  years down the road. If you feel that your egg shells are too thin you can supplement some oyster shells into the chickens diet. They might just need a calcium boost since they use so much once they start

laying. The other benefit of having strong shells is they will not break as easily in the coop if they are not laid on a soft surface.

    I did do some research on how to properly store the eggs. Some chicken owners keep them outside of the fridge. I perfect to keep them in the fridge just to be safe. Also, we wash our eggs right before use instead of right after the hens lay. Only because there is a protective coating on them that helps preserve the egg. However, if we gave you eggs already, we washed them before we gave them too you! Which is okay to do as well. J 

 

The first round of eggs we made for breakfast!