My First Egg

Waiting for your first egg is almost like waiting to deliver a child. You can expect your hens to start laying eggs once they are about 5 months old, their "due date". You might even mark it on your calendar! Your chicks start out so cute and small, just like your body. Then the growing begins, your cute little body, I mean the chicks, get big. You wonder how big your bum is going to get just like you wonder how big your hens are going to get. As the due date gets nearer, you start the official countdown - and people start excitedly asking you if you have gotten any eggs yet. Waiting for the egg past the due date is so 'laborious' and some hens may not even 'deliver' their first egg until they are up to 6 months. Let me tell you, when your hens are 'overdue' on their first egg, it can be very frustrating. Every day feels like an eternity - let alone waiting four more weeks! You might even begin to think that the egg is never going to come, but it will. Every morning you run to the coop to see if there is a little surprise egg waiting for you, and when it's not there the disappointment is real. You have to check a couple more times during the day, because maybe the hens were too cold that morning or maybe they wanted to wait until after they ate. You start to think you must be doing something wrong. Maybe you could get the chicken on the trampoline to get that egg out, or is there some sort of special foot rub you can give to get the labor started? A nice long walk might jar it out. Can you harness a chicken and walk it on a leash?

But eventually it does come.

The excitement of getting the first egg is amazing. It is nowhere near the beautiful experience of delivering or receiving a child, but it is exciting none the less. If you are unfamiliar with farm life like I am, you may be a little apprehensive to eat that first egg. We waited and stressed over the first egg for weeks, but when it finally came we were scared to eat it! I triple dog dared my husband to eat it and he survived, so the fear disappeared after that. Now, after having fresh eggs for a year, I might call myself an 'egg snob' because there is no comparison to store bought eggs, but I will save that for another post.

~Marisa