Egg Harvest
Every day, around 5 PM, I make my way to the chicken coop with an egg carton in one hand and a container filled with the homemade feed mix in the other.
The girls are usually already waiting for me and run inside the coop to be the first to get a hold of the goodies I am bringing them.
After I get them fresh water and locked up, I collect the eggs.
Can you imagine my surprise when I saw the little tiny one?
So cute!!
Sometimes, that happens. An egg just started to form the outer shell before it was at full size. It is not a problem unless it happens often. In that case, some detective work would be in order.
If it happens once in a while, it is just a cause for amusement and for taking some pictures.
That is one of the great advantages of raising your own chickens. Eggs come in many different shapes and colors as you can see in the collection in the carton.
When the hens first start laying, they have small little eggs. As they get older, they get bigger and bigger. While a young hen will lay every day - or almost every day depending on the breed, an older hen might only lay an egg once or twice a week.
But it will be a big one.
The egg on the left is an oddity. The one in the middle is from an older hen and the one on the right of a younger bird.
Every time a hen is molting, her egg production goes down by 20 %. In a commercial operation, the hens are getting replaced when they get into their first molt. That is a nice way of saying they are getting killed and probably turned into dog food.
In a home flock, a hen can get 7 years old, some even older. They won't lay much, but they still scratch and poop and contribute to the homestead in that way.
If you have to buy their food - they become a pet. Even small backyard urban homesteaders have to ask themselves if they have chickens for producing for them or if they are pets.
These girls are showing you where the eggs are coming from as Dan is watching over them.
We don't have any real old birds. The black and white one is the oldest and she is maybe 3 years old now.
Do you have chickens? Are they your pets or are they working for you?
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