This page will be the Official Egg Count Page for our Flock. I thought it would be fun (and informative) to keep track of how many eggs our flock produces in a year. So this page will be where I keep my egg collection stats. I will update it at least weekly, noting any interesting changes that occurred in that week as I go. As we begin I have 7 chicks that are not laying and 1 hen that just started laying in May, (but she did not come to us until June 3rd). I will post my updates in reverse order with the most recent at the top (like blog posts are listed, newest first).
Total Eggs Laid This Year (2014): ** XX ** [Lost track near the end of 2013, so I stopped recording the count. ]
For the week ending Thursday, August 1st. We got 0 eggs so far this week.
- Skipped a day of laying on Friday. First missed day in over 2 weeks.
Week ending Thursday, July 25th. We got 7 eggs so far this week.
- Last week I witnessed my 13 week old Barred Rock cockerel mating (or so it appeared) several times with my laying hen Big Red. I will be checking her eggs for fertility this week, just out of curiosity as to whether or not he is old enough to be fertile already.
- All eggs were verified as fertile upon inspection of the yokes, even the double yokers were fertile. I placed one of her eggs in the incubator and candling on day 6 showed a live chicken embryo doing well inside! See the full post about this here.
- Interesting that since a few days after mating with Barry, Big Red has been laying full-sized, single yoke eggs. All of which have been fertile so far.
Week ending Thursday, 18th of July! We got 7 eggs this week!
- It seems that Big Red has calmed down now with no more moving around because she is laying beautiful eggs every day, many of them were double Yorkers too. She must be kicking out the eggs in overdrive.
- She has also been back on fermented feed steady for two weeks now since we returned from evacuation.
Week ending Thursday, 11th of July! We got 4 eggs this week.
- We returned from evacuation on Thursday night and Big Red laid a huge (double-yoker) egg early Friday evening.
- Sunday morning Big Red laid another huge egg. I wonder how long she will be laying double-yokers? I am not complaining, just curious.
- I am surprised we got 4 eggs this week after the 'Weird Egg Laying' event. She laid another shell-less egg the next evening and then laid two thin, but whole eggs the next two days. I guess she just had a bit of lingering stress from all the moving around and small quarters during the evacuation. She seems to be back to normal. Hope her eggs thicken back up as this next week progresses.
Week ending Thursday, 4th of July! We had 3 eggs.
- The first egg this week was huge! I bet it is a double-yoker. Will know soon when we have it for breakfast.
- Saturday's egg was not viable...totally my fault too :-/ You see, Friday we had late afternoon monsoon rains that cooled us down from 101 to the upper 80's outside. So I made the bad decision to turn the A/C unit off in the coop. It obviously wasn't going to come on til the next day mid-morning so why leave it on I thought. Well, Saturday morning I forgot to turn it back on. So when Big Red went inside to lay her egg, it was well over 100 in the coop. Pour girl tried to stay in there and lay her egg but it was so hot she could not sit in the nest box so she must have been pacing inside the coop totally stressed by the heat. She finally laid an egg and it was so thin-shelled that it broke when she dropped it on the floor of the coop. I feel so bad for her, she really needs to spend about an hour just relaxing in the next box in a cool room, then she lays beautiful eggs.
- Despite the stress of being evacuated, and living in a temporary dog kennel without a coop or nest box, Big Red laid a beautiful brown egg this evening. She laid it right on the ground while my daughter and granddaughter looked on. My granddaughter cheerfully collected the egg and she even remembered to thank Big Red for giving us this egg today.
Week ending Thursday, June 27th. We had 4 eggs this week, and the grandkids got to collect it. They were thrilled. My grandson asked if it was real, lol. I said yes it is and you can have it for breakfast tomorrow!
- Interesting that on the one day this week that I was away for 24 hours, and therefore did not visit the chickens all day, I found an egg on the floor of the coop that looked like a shell-less egg, but there was a very thin half of a shell on it. The egg was intact even without the shell. I wonder if Big Red stressed about me not visiting them throughout the day?
- We got another thin, broken egg on the coop floor at the end of this week. She didn't lay the day before so perhaps she was holding this one over night. Looks like she laid it from the roost, which aided in is breaking when it hit the floor (deep litter can only do so much cushioning).
Week ending Thursday, June 20th. We had 2 eggs with a nice shells. (Only three days since last count)
- I do believe that Big Red is loving her air conditioned coop because we've had 2 perfect eggs since it was installed. She can now go inside and take her time laying her egg without cooking her brain in their. I also installed some 'cool' hippie curtains over the nest boxes. She likes them :-)
- We haven't had a single thin or broken egg this week, and no eggs without shells either. I've been pumping up the calcium treats this week. That combined with the cooler coop because of the air conditioner may be having a positive effect.
Week ending Monday June 17th, this week we got 2 good eggs from Big Red
- She did lay 2 others but they had very thin shells, and 1 other had no shell at all. I think the heat was bothering her inside the coop.
- Interesting side note: we ate her first 5 eggs this week and 3 of the 5 were double yolked.
Week ending Monday June 10th, we had had 4 viable eggs
- Big Red laid 6 eggs but 4 of them broke immediately because of soft-shell, which I think we might have fixed, but it may continue a little longer just because she is a new layer.
Beginning June 4th, 2013 we got our first egg from Big Red.
Keeper of 1 husband, 2 grandkids, 3 dogs,
3 cats, and 17 Chickens!
3 cats, and 17 Chickens!
Did this post stir something inside of you? If so, Please leave me a comment, I would love to know what you're thinking!!!
