I’m getting organized. Scientific even. I bought a white board at SCRAP and nailed it to the wall in the chicken coop to keep track of number of eggs per day. I am even sort of trying to track who is laying what. So far the results are dismal. It seems that we are getting three eggs a day from the same three chickens–Rita, Hasty, and Evelyn. Hmmmm. That would mean that Agnes and Rosey aren’t laying at all (old ladies), Hildy is on sabbatical (I don’t know what her excuse is as she is only 1 1/2, Bella is molting, and Frankie is just a lazy, good-for-nothing chicken, eating a lot and not pulling her weight, sort of like Inez except that Inez is not a chicken. (I don’t know when I decided that it was funny to joke about babies not doing their part, but it still cracks me up. It seems to be the only acceptable way to talk trash about a baby.) Frankie, like Inez, might just be too young as she was hatched at the end of June last year. It is hard to tell with chickens who reach laying age right as the days are short and the rest of the flock is not laying anyway.
Evelyn might well be my hardest worker around here.
She is laying almost every day. This last week she popped out this MASSIVE egg. It was the second of its kind to be presented by this lady. When I told Brad that it was a double yoker, he was unduly surprised. ”Those are real?” he said. Of course they are real! Even though he had heard about them all his life, because he had never seen one, he didn’t really believe they were real. Weird denial of reality is what I call that. I hear that the sun is made of gas, and you know what? I believe it.
This is a comparison photo: normal egg from Hasty, giHUGIC egg from Evelyn. This worries me a bit actually. It is fairly common for chickens who produce these huge suckers to get egg bind, a condition where the egg literally gets STUCK inside them. A friend on our street lost a chicken to egg bind lately. I am freaked out that I might have to reach up in a chicken and break an egg to get it out if this were to occur with one of our hens. Here is hoping it doesn’t. A friend of a friend also told me that she gave her hen a warm bath when she had egg bind. The egg came right out. Hmmm. I guess I like baths. I’ve never had one with a chicken though.
More photos to impress and (in the case of Anne) disgust?
Ahh yes! Look at those old lady hands! (It was because I was working with clay all day; I got a lot of terra cotta stuck in the cracks in my hands.)
We need to hurry up and come up with a use for this egg as it does not fit in the carton. Really.
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
WOAH. When John lived here he’d bring me eggs from his wife’s coop and some were large and some were small, but we never got anything THAT large! Of course John transported them to us in cartons so I suppose that even if Kristy got eggs that big, she would be unlikely to give them away, especially as they wouldn’t fit in the carton. But yes, I would say that classifies as fuh-reaky.
And Anne is freaked out by eggs? Or by things abnormally large? Or by terracotta hands?
January 22nd, 2010
I want to see pictures of you taking a bath with the chicken- that should be good for a laugh ; )
You are absolutely right that babies don’t pull their weight around the house- and I think they should be presented with a bill when they are 18. It should include all billable hours and an offer to wipe clean the slate only if they care for you in your old age.
January 22nd, 2010
Wow! That’s a big egg! I guess I’m only freaked out by the idea of really yucky things. Like an egg getting stuck in a chicken. And even grosser is the idea of Ingrid trying to get it out. Sick.
January 22nd, 2010
Wowee… those are some crazy big eggs!
I’ve also taken to trash talking babies about shirking responsibility… I recently made a joke while going through a checkout line about telling Claire to get a job and her not listening. I thought it was hilarious… the cashier just gave me a funny look in response.
February 23rd, 2010
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