It may be the cock that crows, but it’s the hen that lays the egg. ~Margaret Thatcher
It’s all about the egg!
We were beyond thrilled to find our first egg on Sunday. Beyoncegg has been showing signs of getting ready to lay her first egg and we were so excited to see this little protein packed nugget!
In celebration of this first little butt nugget we gave extra love and treats to the girls. It just so happened that my parents were visiting for the day and were able to celebrate with us! Check out these adorable photos of Mom and Dad congratulating our Girl!
We’ve decided to save the first few eggs and have our daughter bake something with them so we can share the first eggs with as many people as possible! Any requests? She’s pretty good! You can leave your vote in the comments!
Here are a few other photos of the celebratory day:
I finally feel like I’m learning and may be able to share some things that may be helpful to those that are looking to become a bit more self-sustaining. Let’s start with:
How to tell when your chicken is getting ready to lay her first egg.
- Age is a big factor – Chickens start laying anywhere from 18 to 24 weeks, most around 6 months. Some rarely will lay earlier, some later. I know this is a big window so feel free to head over to MyPetChicken to learn more about different breeds along with EVERYTHING chicken
- Squatting is weird, but can be a sign – I started noticing that Beyoncegg squatted down and spread her wings a little when I went to pet her in the past couple of weeks. This, I’ve read, resembles a rooster…well….coming on to her isn’t the right phrase, but you probably get my drift.
- Nesting – About 2 weeks ago we noticed definite signs of nesting. We use pine shavings in our coop and began to see little round indents (the size of a chicken) in the shavings. I’m not 100% sure that chickens do this when they are getting ready to lay, but we took it as a sign.
- Sounds – This is funny…if you were there….so I’ll do my best. Hubs (still need a nickname for him, all the popular blogs have one for their hubs…the Pioneer Woman calls her man The Marlboro Man, Lysa of Sagebrush Farms calls her guy Mr. SBF – I’ve been following her for inspiration – but I digress…) eh hem, Hubs and I were in the garden on Sunday morning when we heard this crazy balking from across the yard. I thought something was attacking the coop! Hubs went to check it out and saw that everything was in order, just Beyoncegg warming up her vocal cords. Chickens do get a bit loud when they are getting ready to lay. A true sign.
- You can just feel it – this is meant to be literal, but I did feel it in my heart as well. Literally you can pick up a chicken and feel their back end (also know as the vent area) and detect if a hen is in lay. (Don’t I sound official!?!?) But I’m learning from the best so check out this video from Mike Colley for the details if you’re interested!
We’ve had some lofty goals this year, so far we’ve exceeded some, fallen short on others. (You can check out our January Post to see what we were aiming for) but this has to be one of my favorite goals that we have achieved…except for the puppy, and the garden, and OK…ALL OF THE THINGS! I KNOW! I’M COOKY! But those eggs are going to taste soooooo good!
So there you have it! Thanks for reading this special edition of The Cohn Chronicles and thank you for following our journey. We look forward to sharing our continued learnings and lessons.
With Love,
The Cohns
