Our First Egg!

If you don’t follow me on Instagram then you probably didn’t see my huge announcement… the first egg was laid!!! We are all so very excited about this. It was a moment of taking so many pictures. 

Now, we were sure that our black sex-link Oreo was going to be the first to lay. She had been showing signs that she is ready to lay for about a month now. But no, we were really surprised by which chicken laid today.

This morning started out with us trying to figure out the configuration new roosting bars to help eliminate the roosting wars we have going on. (An entirely different saga going on there.) We had to kick the chickens out of the coop while we were installing it. And outside the door to the run all we could hear was serious squawking by Penny our Ideal. Now this chicken will squawk at you whenever you are not doing what she wants you to do so I didn’t worry about it. She couldn’t be roaming the coop while we were moving everything around. After Hubby got everything secured we opened the run door and Penny came marching in giving us a stern clucking to. Then she jumped into the nesting box she has claimed as her own and settled in.

We watched her for a few minutes then we decided to give her some privacy. Not even 10 minutes later she laid her very first egg! 

Now I am sure she was a bit confused about the whole ordeal. I would be. I let her sit there for a while as I was busy taking pictures, of course. Penny stood there for a few minutes then she started checking out her little baby egg. And she would then look at me and then look down. 

What just happened!?!

Then the last thing I expected happened. She rolled the egg under her chest and proceeded to lay on the egg. I watched her for a bit longer and she started getting more comfy and settled in. She started rearranging the straw in the nesting box around her. It was so very clear she was not planning on moving – she had gone broody on me! What!?! Broody? Really? Who has ever seen a hen go broody with her very first egg? This chicken has shown no signs of having a broody personality at any point in her short 21 weeks of life.

What was I going to do with her? I gave her some more time to come to terms with the major ordeal she just went through. Then for a brief moment she stood up to rearrange her egg and nest and I seized the opportunity to grab the egg. 

But not wanting to stress her out I put a golf ball that was in a different nest into the box. She was not happy with me putting my hands anywhere near her and she bit me. She settled herself in and I proceeded to tell the world of Instagram. 

It's so tiny! Just a little larger than a golf ball.

Sometime later I went out to check on her and she was out of the box and acting like her normal trouble making self. 

 

I wonder who is going to lay next…