Egg News

This is not the best quality picture but you can see the deformed egg. If I didn't know better I might think that it was starting to develop or something, but we collect the eggs daily, so this is just a dud. Dustin was frying up eggs for breakfast. Needless to say after I took the picture we dumped this egg into the compost bucket.
As Noah would say, "This is a honker!" Well, big for us anyways and no it is not a duck egg. Most of the eggs we've been getting are out of our sexlinked pullets. I think the large one is out of our older layers, who have been molting and are just starting to lay again. Considering that this egg was so big that the carton wouldn't close, I guess it was pretty big. Below is a picture of it next to a quarter and a normal size egg. The far bottom photo was a picture of it in the pan, a double yolker.

In other news, our one female duck has not started laying that we know of. She is about eight months old and the males have been mating her for a couple months. The ducks are in with some chickens. The chickens lay their eggs in the nesting boxes. If the duck is laying her eggs they would be on the ground so I'm starting to wonder if she or the chickens are eating her eggs. Might be time for a special box on the ground for her.

The Ameraucanas are just starting to lay. I have four pullets and I'm just getting a blue green egg every other day, so I think maybe the most mature pullet is just starting. I can't wait until they are all laying as blue eggs are just lovely, so far the eggs from this batch of Ameraucanas are more narrow. Last year we bought Ameraucanas from a different breeder, the eggs were round and the shell quality and color were excellent. The birds themselves were rather flighty and small. We've got a few roosters this year, and I'm happy to say that they actually have enough meat on their frames to make them worth harvesting, unlike last year. I had received an odd ball Delaware pullet in with the Ameraucanas and I was looking forward to seeing how she laid as she was a very nice bird. Unfortunately she up and died last week. After feeding a bird for seven months, it is a bummer when they die and you can't eat them, and never got any eggs from them either.


Our Welsummer pullets have not started laying yet. There are three of them and they are about eight months old. We should get our first egg any day, I hope. The only chickens that are laying right now are our sexlinked pullets and the older layers must be starting up again, as we are getting about eight eggs a day, as few as six and up to a dozen. I am looking forward to the diversity in egg color the Ameraucana and Welsummers provide, but I am surprised at how much slower they are to mature as they are about the same age as the Sexlinks who have been laying consistently since September. So tallying up the numbers we have at least seven chickens and a duck that haven't started laying yet, so I think will fair well in eggs this year. I think now is the slowest time of year and we will only get more eggs from here on out. As much as I like raising heritage breeds and having a diverse flock, I sure appreciate the sexlinked hybrid layers on these cold dark winter days.