and on the seventh day: another egg

This week started with Sophia firing on all cylinders: three eggs in three days.

Then a day of rest. (understandable)

And another. (puzzling, but acceptable)

And another. (are we at worrisome yet?)

Then, today, we get egg number four. Hooray!

Of course, the topic of off-line conversations have all been around, "well what do you think is wrong with her?" and "is this how they work?" and have greatly exposed my newbie status in this art of backyard chicken farming.

I just don't know how this all works, but that's what's driven me to blog here, so that others can follow along as I lurch through this thick unknowingness that is raising chickens in one's backyard.

And I'm so grateful to have so many kind folks who weigh in with comments that light the way, even if it's only a brief glimpse at the path ahead. Glad to have you here in the blogosphere with me.

Now, back to worrying about when the next egg will arrive!

rethinking our open door policy

I remember the first evening we had our Eglu... as the sun went down, I dutifully lured the chooks inside and closed the door so they'd be safe and sound until the morning.

Bright and early the next day, I went out to the backyard and opened the door again and our chooks came tumbling out and into the run anxious to get access again to their feed and water.

I repeated this for the next couple overnights (lure them in, close the door... open the door, chooks scramble out) until we went out of town for the weekend. Instead of enlisting a chicken-sitter, I simply loaded up the food and water bowls and left the girls to their own devices. Necessarily, this meant the door stayed open morning, noon, and night. Nothing untoward happened, and I actually liked the freedom to sleep in a bit in the morning and not worry my thirsty chickens were desperately clawing to break out of their coop to get much needed water out in the run.

So, since that first week, I haven't closed the door again. In fact, it's been three months since I closed the girls in the coop at night. Given the way the folks at Omlet designed the Eglu, I haven't felt the need to put the girls away, especially given how temperate the climate is here in the Bay Area. If the design of the run is such that it's difficult (dare I say impossible?) for a predator to dig under the wire to get at the birds, why close the door between the run and the coop?

Yes, I've seen the neighborhood cat pacing around the backyard trying to figure out how to get in, but that's been during the day when they girls wouldn't be locked in the coop anyway. No raccoons near here that I know of, but would they even be able to get in?

And since Sophia seems capable of laying eggs in the nesting box without the privacy of a closed door, that reason for closing them up seems to be moot.

Now, it's gotten me to wonder, why even bother to close the door of the Eglu until things get cold this winter and the girls need the warmth of the close confines?

I know others, who have housing arrangements that do not include an Eglu have to worry about battening down the hatches at night, but why should I shut them in?

Would love to hear others' thoughts on the matter, especially those with Eglus like me.

yummy yard-fresh eggs

This morning, I cooked up our first "yard fresh eggs" (doesn't sound as good as "farm fresh" but it's technically correct).

As you can see by the photo at right, I made them over-medium just to be able to watch them cook up on their stiff whites and to get that golden ooze of a fresh yolk.

The biggest surprise in cooking them? The egg shells are so hard! Over the years, I've learned (by rote) how to open an egg with one hand, using just the right amount of force to crack the shell so I can spill out the contents. I'm going to have to re-learn the skill with these fresh eggs now.

And I gotta tell ya, it's going to be hard to eat the store-bought eggs after this morning's exercise. Sure, I'll be able to put store-bought eggs in batters and such, but eating eggs in isolation? (omelets or scrambles or over-mediums?) It'll have to be yard fresh eggs for me, thanks.

If you click on the picture of the eggs in the pan, you'll get to the rest of my Flickr stream showing Sophia's first three eggs in a bowl, and the aforementioned golden yolk ooze. YUM!

Sophia lays number two

We were out most of the day yesterday, and it wasn't until just before dinner I went down to check the girls' water and food levels. Being an optimist, I just had to look in the nesting box, hoping against hope.

Despite having set diminished expectations on when we'd see our second egg out of Sophia, I was pleasantly surprised to open the Eglu's nesting box door and see another egg perched in the bedding materials!

This second egg (picture to come) is a lot smoother than egg #1, but it's the same size as the first. An informal survey of everyone I've bragged to about our first egg says we should blow out the first egg and save it for posterity's sake as a reminder of the first day of production in our nascent chicken farming history (kinda like framing the first dollar bill taken in at a new store).

I'm thinking that's a good idea.

OUR FIRST EGG!!!!

As if she were waiting for the second broadcast of Spark, Sophia laid her first egg today!

We noticed the clucking of the girls was a bit different today than usual, and when we went out to let them free range this afternoon, our peek into the nesting box was rewarded with our first egg. I'm so proud of Sophia!

You can see our oldest, Hannah, in the picture to the right holding the egg in her hands, trying her hardest not to shake it up to find out what's inside (her prior experiences to finding eggs in the yard have all been at Easter time, so she likely thinks any egg found in the yard was left by the Easter Bunny and contains something chocolate-y inside.

To give a better idea of how big this first egg is in comparison to others, here's a shot of Sophia's egg (on the left) next to a store-bought USDA Grade A large egg (on the right):



And how do we know it's Sophia's egg? Well, we didn't see Sophia do it, but she's definitely the more mature of the two girls, as her wattles are starting to drop, and her "hips" seem to be a bit farther apart and the vent area (between tail and legs) is a bit fuller than ZsuZsu's.

Maybe this'll inspire ZsuZsu to develop a bit faster?

Hooray! we're now in eggs!

hello Spark listeners!

Glad to have you all here on the Urban Chickens blog! As you can see in the post below, we're still egg-less, but hopeful the day's coming soon when we'll reach into the nest and get our first egg.

I had a lot of fun talking with Nora Young (the host of Spark) about what it's like raising chickens here in Redwood City, but radio being radio, there wasn't time for everything to be shared. If folks have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments here and I'll answer them as fast as I can.

Also, be sure to check out the blogs of the other chicken farmers I know in the blog roll list to the right (scroll down a little)... I've learned a lot from reading them, and we've all got our own perspective on what it's like to raise your own chickens.

Oh, and lastly, if you're interested in getting into this yourself, do give the folks at Omlet a look-see. They've got a great design in the Eglu that's made my own entry into the world of backyard chicken farming a piece of cake. Tell them Thomas and Spark sent you!

Never heard of Spark?

Well, prepare to be surprised! The girls and I were on the radio this morning as part of the debut episode of the new CBC radio program Spark - Tech, Trends and Fresh Ideas.

Spark is broadcast weekly CBC Radio One on Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. ET and again on
Saturdays at 4:00 p.m. ET and is available via podcast, too.

To hear this week's show that Sophia, ZsuZsu and I are on:

• download the mp3 from CBC here: http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/spark_20070905_3205.mp3 or
• subscribe/download from iTunes here: itpc://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/spark.xml

We're just part of the lineup, so if you've only got a little time to spare and want to hear me and the girls, here's where to fast forward your mp3 player:

(on the iTunes-hosted podcast) the segment we're in starts at 19:05 and my interview (with the chickens in the background) starts at 20:20 and goes to 24:38. The girls get their clear clucking credit at 26:09.

Back to the chicken farming!

Labor Day's come and gone... still no eggs

I was so hoping I'd stroll out to the Eglu this morning and peek inside to find our first egg (see all my posts regarding the timing of the first egg here). But it wasn't to be.

Unless the chickens have figured out a way top dig a hole in the dirt, drop the egg in and cover it up and pack it back down, we've got no eggs yet.

So, my initial prognostication of eggs on Labor Day didn't come true, but I still think September's the golden month. The folks at McMurray Hatchery say chicks start laying between 5 and 7 months of age, whereas the My Pet Chicken FAQs says it's 4-5 months.

A Manitoba (Canada) government web site has this nice little PDF on Egg Size and Your Small Flock of Laying Hens with this little tidbit in it:

Lighting programs influence egg size by accelerating or delaying the age at which hens start to lay eggs. The younger a hen is when she starts egg production, the smaller her eggs will be during her first year of life. The start of egg production can be delayed by providing 10 hours or less of light each day to 19 weeks of age. Decreasing the daily hours of light at any time after 10 weeks of age will also delay the start of egg production.

We haven't done any artificial lighting with our girls, but considering the fact we've been in midsummer light for a couple months now, I don't think the light's affecting their time of lay.

I just have to be more patient with them and be happy with an egg of any size when it first comes (given the size of Sophia's vent and the width of her "hips," I think she'll be the first to lay).