Our hens were about this same size when we got them 20 weeks ago.
One second after this photo was taken, the egg LEAPED out of Nolan's hands and splattered onto my bedroom floor. Even though the egg is small, it had a nice big yolk inside.
As far as I know, the hens aren't supposed to be laying for two more weeks, so a tiny egg is a big deal at this point. I found this tiny gem out by my clothesline.
This is also an exciting day for us because we have lost so many hens. We started with 8 hens and bought an adult rooster shortly thereafter. Then we bought 5 more 24-hour-old hens and 5 more roosters (the roosters came free with a bag of feed, so we said "why not?" and raised them to butcher). Because of a hawk and the neighbors' four dogs and two of the hen babies growing up to be roosters, we are down to 2 hens. We're hoping that we will get 2 eggs per day, and that's two more homegrown healthy eggs per day than we were getting before. We are blessed.
This little egg, even though it was splattered before any of us could enjoy it, has given me motivation to raise another batch of chicks. So bring on the heat lamp and the constant cleaning of the cage and the fear that Ruby will squeeze, I mean, love them to death. Instead of taking another risk of accidentally getting males even though I paid extra for females the first time around, I'll be ordering my babies online. They are guaranteed to be gender specific.
