First egg!

rdsaunders

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Hey everyone.

I’ve been a bit quiet since the girls have arrived and getting into a daily routine with them now. I’d kinda thought we wouldn’t see any of the girls laying until spring, but one of our Light Sussex, Rosemary’s comb was looking different from the rest of them, deep red and larger in size.

I went down to let them out this morning to be greeted by our first egg just inside the door. Exciting not sure if the others will fall online but our girls were over the moon when I called them down to show them.

I was wondering how do I encourage them to lay in the nest box rather than in the main part of the coop, or will they eventually work it out?

c03e7371ab48a05d753a9b76f65560a4.jpg



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Marigold

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CINGRATULATIONS! More to follow, I hope! And what a lovely picture, definitely a milestone!
Yes she will work it out, I’m sure. Probably just got taken short because she didn’t realise what was happening!
 

rdsaunders

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Morning

Glad to hear they’ll probably work it out. I hadn’t thought of weighing it but just put it on the scale and it’s 41grams.

As for it looking large that’ll be the photograph it is a little one, although for her first she was probably happy it wasn’t any bigger :)


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Marigold

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It’ll be interesting for the kids to keep on weighing them, to see how the weight creeps up, a gram or so at a time. Make a chart - home maths activity?
 

LadyA

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Nothing beats the excitement of the first egg! Her little face is just wonderful! I always think it's one of the most important lessons we can teach children, where and how food is produced, even on a small scale. My almost four year old grandson asks when he comes "Nanny, did the chickens poop any eggies out their bums today?" :lol: :lol:
 

bigyetiman

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Congratulations, always exciting when the first egg arrives, and I think your daughter's face says it all.
Our girls have always sussed the nest boxes, just had the odd one laid in a strange place and we just put it down to the egg being a high speed one.
 

rdsaunders

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Marigold said:
It’ll be interesting for the kids to keep on weighing them, to see how the weight creeps up, a gram or so at a time. Make a chart - home maths activity?
My wife was on it this morning when the second arrived, she’s got a little chart to plot their progress :)


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rdsaunders

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Hen-Gen said:
To encourage them to lay in the laying boxes buy a couple of ceramic eggs and place them in the boxes. Hens like to lay where there are other eggs so this usually solves the problem. Amazon have them.
That’s a great idea, I’ll take a look for those.


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rdsaunders

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Morning everyone.

So we had 5 good eggs in a row, (tasted great scrambled). The last one the shell wasn’t as smooth and was slightly pitted near the top.

We didn’t have an egg yesterday and today’s was completely shell less. Should I be concerned or is this normal for young chickens?


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Marigold

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Hi Richard, it’s not unusual for pullets to have a few problems when settling into lay. So long as she is actually managing to get the egg out in one piece, it won’t harm her and she will most probably get the hang of it quite soon. However, as she laid a softie today, keep an eye on her in case she is spending an unusually long time trying to lay, or if you see her straining with no result. Soft eggs are more difficult to lay, less to push against, and if it just won’t come out she might be egg bound. I don’t think this is very likely, it’s probable that tomorrow’s egg will be normal, and that today’s softie was just a hiccup in the stages of developing the egg internally. The shell layer is added last, and a young bird might have temporary problems coordinating this.
Please let us know if she lays tomorrow, and what it’s like.
 

bigyetiman

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Marigold has summed it up perfectly. They will soon get into swing of things and every egg will come out perfectly packaged
 

rdsaunders

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Thanks everyone, really appreciate the thoughtful and clear responses. It’s definitely strange to see an egg without its shell, very peculiar. Glad to hear that she should get the hang of things.


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bigyetiman

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We always get a few dodgy ones a few days after bonfire week.
You soon realise that eggs come out all sorts of shapes, we have a Maran that lays torpedo shaped ones. Now eggs have to be a standard size to fit in the supermarket box, the average person never sees an "odd" shaped egg
 

Marigold

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bigyetiman said:
We always get a few dodgy ones a few days after bonfire week.
You soon realise that eggs come out all sorts of shapes, we have a Maran that lays torpedo shaped ones. Now eggs have to be a standard size to fit in the supermarket box, the average person never sees an "odd" shaped egg

Not just size and shape - when I give away eggs to friends, they’re amazed at the blue-green ones!
 
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