We have been anxiously awaiting the hens to start laying eggs. They have been entertaining to watch and all, but eggs were reason we kept hens and ate roosters. A point that seemed to be lost on these hens as the took their sweet time at producing the first egg. Poopy Butt, named after an actual condition she had repeatedly as a young hatchling (the solution to this problem is to gently scrub away the poop blocking the chicks orifice which I never did) is a beautiful Speckled Sussex hen and the winner of the first egg prize. We have two Speckled Sussex hens and only Poopy Butt follows close on Kris's heels and babbles to her. Kris imitates the peeps and chuckles and I see the two wandering around the farm together several times a day. I imagine their was a bond created between the two and I am lucky that Poopy Butt doesn't live in the barn with us.
Anyway, we have EGGS. The first day we only had EGG. Every time Kris and I would pass each other for the rest of the day one of us would point out we have EGG and smile. I don't think we could have been prouder than if one of us laid the EGG. Perhaps isolation and farm living makes us easily entertained.
I do know that finding an egg in the morning changes your outlook for the rest of the day. When I was very little I used to love going out to collect the eggs, a chore Grandma Wasson entrusted to the three grand kids when we stayed over. We took a basket and went out to the hen house expectantly. Some times we might get four eggs and sometimes none and it was, of course, more fun to find eggs than not and you felt responsible for the count. You apologized if you didn't find any and celebrated when you did.
Once in awhile a hen would be setting on the eggs and that created a problem for three very young egg gatherers. Hens pecked, especially hens on a nest, and none of us wanted to be pecked. Volunteers were always solicited-none ever came forward. Then plans were made and finally a plot was hatched. We had seen Grandma shoo the chicken out of the nest with her hand like it was nothing. None of us were going to try that. We did try acting like we were going to shoo the hen out and stopped just before the danger zone. Evidently, Grandma grew a fairly stalwart type of hen because this never worked. In the end, we always resorted to a stick and took turns since there was still some risk involved as the hen flapped off the nest. There was also the problem of Grandma taking exception to idea of using a stick on her hens. None of us ever brought up the subject. Grown ups can be touchy about certain things. Still, it lent adventure to egg gathering and we never missed a chance to go.
The hens we are raising seem a lot less fearsome than Grandma's. We are anxiously awaiting our third EGG. Perhaps finding EGGS will be less exciting after awhile---but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.
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