Miracle
A small miracle has occurred. We have waited and waited for our hens to lay us an egg and then this morning......
I heard Nick frantically yelling to me to come outside, and there in the nest was the most perfect white egg. I rushed to get the camera and, as I was rearranging the straw, I found the blue one too! One egg from Scramble and one from Omelet.
Lots of praise was given to the layers, and Margo got plenty of encouragement to join her sisters in womanhood. Ooooh I felt like a proud mother - in fact I've almost got tears in my eyes just thinking about them.
I brought the eggs inside and washed them. They are quite a bit smaller than normal eggs, but as the hens get older the eggs will bet bigger. Nick and I are now trying to decide how we are going to cook the eggs tonight. We fancy boiling them for that pure unadulterated egg experience, but we also want to keep the shells, so we might blow the egg out and scramble it. It would be a rather small portion though.
As our three hens all lay different coloured eggs it will be easy to tell who is laying what. Nick is keen on starting a productivity spreadsheet to determine who is earning their keep. I am slightly concerned at what his actions might be to the poor hen who lags behind.
All his talk of spreadsheets got me wondering how much these 2 eggs cost us, so here is a little spreadsheet of my own:
£180 Chicken house
£150 Materials to build run
£30 wood chips in run
£20 food - pellets and corn (sacks will last a year)
£10 bedding - straw and wood shavings
£25 water and food dispenser
£10 chicken vitamins and louse stuff
£20 3 rare breed Chickens (bargain)
£445 Total
Therefore our 2 eggs cost a whopping £222.50 each. They had better be delicious! I will report back tomorrow with the tasting results.
posted by Rach at 13:14
7 Comments:
I would go for the boiled option for the pure egg experience but as you say, if you want to keep the shells this could be tricky.
The first eggs are expensive but it is the same with any form of manufacture, the first one off the production line is the most expensive and each subsequent one gets cheaper.
If you get two more tomorrow the price of the eggs will plumet to a mere £111.25 each, a bargain!!!
That is good news. I would encourage Nick to publish his chicken-productivity results. Perhaps a "she who lays least ends in the pie, pie-chart"?
Ooh, that must have been so exciting for you! Decisions, decisions.......if I ate eggs I'd go for boiled eggs with lots of buttery soldiers! Your blue egg looks lovely, I think I might have to get some cream legbars this summer, my uncle has some so I might have to talk nicely to him and see if he'll hatch me some or give me some eggs to hatch myself!
By the way, the best way to clean them is with a damp piece of kitchen towel.
Enjoy your egg feast this evening!
Lisa
Lisa, if you want cream legbars then I would highly recommend DavieScot from the PP forum.
He is in Fife and breeds Cream legbars and brown leghorns. He would send some eggs I am sure. He does it for fun (not as a job if you see what I mean) so never has huge anounts of stock but he is the nicest man and was really helpful and generous to us when we got our hens from him.
Many many many congratulations to you both. You must be so proud - and well done to the chickens too of course!!! I'm sure that however you decide to cook the eggs, or "eggstract" them from their shells, they will be delicious. Extra corn for the ladies would be in order, and a celebratory tipple for you two!!! WELL DONE !!!!
Well done team.
Hallelujah!
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