Rural Gardening: I have an egg!!! Our FIRST egg!, 1 by silkiechick

silkiechick wrote:
i got a surprise today,lol. when my girls have started to lay over the years i've had eggs with no shells, eggs with rubber shells, torpedo shaped, and torpedo dbl yolk ones but today i had to laugh. i got a pullet egg from one of my silkie pullets the size of mabe a nickle. omg!! it is so cute my 3 year old says it is sissy size it is hers she claimed it for breakfast, rotfl. i had to share it is the cutest little brown egg ever and smaller than a robins egg. every first egg is exciteing even if it is umteen times down the road!!

now to answer some of your questions. a pullet is not a hen till it is one year of age. it is a laying pullet not a hen athough it can still lay eggs or fertile eggs under the age of 1. anything over 1 year is considered a hen.

as far as i know they don't store up eggs inside they store up the stuff they get from the male. if u remove it from the male it can lay fertile eggs seperated from him for 7-10 days. if you introduce him to the female and he is of breeding age it is only about 3 to start laying fertile but sometimes up to 7 days. i have heard though that a hen can hold in an egg and refuse to lay till she feels comfortable in her home even if it takes 6mths for her to lay but i find that hard to believe. i can see a few days but not months on end. now a cockatiel lays an egg every other day(i breed them also) they breed one day lay the next and keep alternating for up till they have a clutch then start sitting and go broody and stop laying. that would make sence to the storeing up eggs because while one is developeing the shell and being laid the next is already working on being made so esentialy that makes sence they constanly have one inside and a back up on the way. i asume all birds are fairly similar but i don't see how they could hold more than 2 inside but i supose anything is possible.

i have had rir hens lay 2 eggs a day so more than one is very possible. i didn't believe it till i left some at home and had some in a show and my girls laid in the morning and evening almost every otherday. they where caged seperately and there was to many eggs so yes it is possible. my rir girls lay xx jumbos everyday and i can't fit them in a jumbo sized egg carten they are an excellent breed for sharing fresh eggs that's what i do i give them to my elderly neighbers.

if you crack open a fresh egg you will not see it fertile till after heat has been added to it usually about 5 days after it has sat on the counter you can. it has that white squiggle in it (which they all have)but you will see a small white dot with rings around it and the yolk looks like it has a dullness color to it that is what a fertile egg will look like if it is in the early early stages of developement. after so long yes it will have the red bloodspot or look like it is bleeding that is what you will see after the fertile spot starts to form the tiny embryo.

mine are all raised on wire so i normally don't have to clean mine. once in a great while they will have a tiny pooh spot on them i use a toothbrush i bought special for cleaning them it just scratches right off. if they are for hatching eggs i don't due anything else water will drowned the embryos and pull bacteria into the eggs. if it is for eating i do the same but run them under warm water then air dry after towel drying. i leave them sit in egg cartons on the kitchen table for a week before i put in the fridge since my house is a/c and have never had a spoiled egg. when i use them to eat i break open in a dish and smell it and look to make sure it is good if not i dump it.

eggs at home are good for mths actually, when you get store bought they sit for mths before you get them. to taste the difference make 2 egg sandwhiches. one fresh one store bought. eat the fresh one then the other. the store bought will have a pale yellow yolk where as the fresh will be more golden orange. the fresh will have a good yummy taste the store bought should taste bitter after eating the fresh.

if we get to many to use i scramble them up and crush the shells feed them back to the chickens for extra calcium it doesn't make them become egg eaters some have even had the fresh eggs. they only due it when they are lacking calcium and can't make the shells cause they are out of oyster grit. but there is such a thing as an egg eater that ill do it no matter what.

if you have a whole clutch of eggs and no setters it is cause ur girls are to young and haven't kicked into mom drive. unless you have broodies there is no point in leaveing them in the nest. your pullets will learn as they grow and do it on their own naturally. if they are weird like my one pullet and lay in the feed dish or anyplace other than the nest boxes the best thing i found was to stick white golf balls in the nest. everytime they kick it out put it right back in.

my 5 kid's have helped me hatch chicks in bators and under broodies and even raise showbirds, nothing compares to what they learn and the fun they have with our flock. i wouldn't change it for the world. we all love every bit of it and the bonus for us is the gifts they give us each day!! haha wait till you start to have blue, green or pink eggs laid they think they are golden eggs, your kid's will be tickled if you have colored layers!!
hope this helps some,
silkie