Eggs and Bedtime

The chucks have been here for four days now and already we have eggs! I’m genuinely surprised because I thought it would take them longer to settle in and de-stress enough to produce eggs. It seems though that they’re getting to know where home is quicker than I thought.

About Wednesday lunchtime after their first night with us, I heard a lot of clucking from the coop. As this was the most noise I’d heard them make I thought I’d go and check out what was up and, lo and behold, I found our first egg in the nest box! I did a bit of Googling and I think that it came from one of the Black Rocks as they are the oldest and produce darker eggs with a few speckles on them.

Our First Egg! From the Black Rock.

This morning when we let them out we found another egg! This time it was a plain white one and considering the next oldest are the Mottled Leghorns we reckon it was one of them (and after another Google search I’m pretty confident it was one of them).

Our second egg from the Leghorn.

Egg number 3 arrived shortly after at lunchtime (another Black Rock dark speckled egg) and just before popping the chucks to bed we found egg number 4! This again was a plain white one but it was a bit misshapen and not formed very well. This is probably the first egg that one of the Mottled Leghorns had lain as, even though they are  second oldest, they are only 24 weeks old and have only just started laying so she has probably not quite got the hang of it yet. In a week or so though they should be perfectly formed though. They’ll still taste wonderful though!

Three eggs now….

Number 4, a first laying attempt

Speaking of getting the hang of things, we had to teach them when and where to go to bed. On the first night they needed a little persuading to go into the coop. In fact we had to herd them up and pop some of the younger ladies, our Warrens, in by hand because they didn’t like the ladder.

We did that Wednesday and Thursday night too but tonight we made progress! We didn’t have to pick up any stragglers or even herd them into the corner by the coop. As soon as they saw us come into the enclosure, they knew it was bedtime and all went up one by one (despite the hold up at the entrance because they all wanted to sleep at that end but a bit of pushing past sorted that out!).

Breakfast on the other hand is an easier affair, where all you have to do is open the coop door and everyone is out and ready for breakfast! Here’s some of them making their way out:

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So all is well in our little chicken haven, they’re settling in really well and seem really happy. The next steps are to get them used us and to being held so it makes health checks easier and most importantly, finalising names for our lovely ladies! Happy clucking all!!