1st easter egger comes online

First egg from the nameless, spazzy EE. We call her "brown chicken".

Her first egg is quite small and weighed 40.2 grams. This makes it a USDA Peewee (seriously, that's an official size). Perfectly fine for a first effort from a non-production bird.




Broke some eggs to make a cheesecake and thought you might want to see the coloration of the inner and outer shell. The brown eggs are white shell with medium brown pigment layer on the outside. The slate green eggs are pale blue with a light brown pigment layer on the outside.

The outer pigment, if any, is laid down near the end of the cycle. In some breeds with very dark (chocolate) coloration it can actually smear or wash off a bit. This is not necessarily evidence of nefarious chromatic tampering.




Purty.

Whenever I pick up eggs from the nesting boxes I always thank the birds. Sounds silly but I think St. Francis was on to something.

EE pullet doing "egg squat"

Birds are now at the 21 week mark.

Last week the smaller RIR started laying and she has produced an egg in the late morning for 8 straight days so far. Certainly more consistency than I expected.

This week the wilder of the EE pullets started doing the egg squat. This is a dropping-down movement maturing pullets do when approached by a rooster (or human).

It has three steps:

1. get low, and (optionally) spread the wings a bit. Maybe 1".
   
2. if touched more to the tail end than the head end, jack up the rear end (ie, present for mounting)
3. afterwards, ruffle feathers using the same motion dogs use to shake off water. I assume this move is to get all feathers back into place after the rooster's interaction.
   

The most interesting thing is that not only is the full squat dance sequential, but so is the development of the dance. Our young pullets start with #1, then #1-2 a bit later, then #1-2-3 about a week before laying their first egg.

I tell you that to tell you this: went out this morning and our largest EE pullet did the whole 1-2-3 egg squat. She started 1 and 2 earlier this week. It's hilarious because she has been the most skittish of our birds: couldn't get near her since she's been about 3wks old. But now her hormones are cranking up and she's compelled to stop and accept physical interaction. I can just imagine her little pea-brain is saying "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME! WANT TO RUN! CAN'T RUN! WHY AM I DOING THIS? ARGGHHH!"

It's ok, bird. Adolescence is difficult, no matter the species. I'd show you my yearbook photos but you'd probably just poop on it.

First egg @ 20 weeks

First egg, found this afternoon after I got back from work.


This first effort is 2" x 1 5/8". It weighs 50.4 grams (1.78 oz), which makes it a "medium" egg according to the USDA. The math according to their formula works out like this:

Jumbo: 2.5 oz
Extra Large: 2.25 oz
Large: 2.0 oz
Medium: 1.75 oz
Small: 1.5 oz

My instinct is the RIR will start out with Medium and end up Large or slightly shy of Large. The EEs will likely start out Small and end up with Medium once they hit their stride.

I was feeling optimistic last week so I had already picked up this 25c egg-collecting basket from a thrift store in Plano. Baskets may look silly but experienced egg transporters know that eggs in hand, eggs in pocket, or eggs in pulled-up shirt will eventually result in tragedy.

It is common for egg production to be uneven in the beginning, so I'm not expecting much at this point.

Here are the suspects. It's got to be one of the Rhode Island Reds (pictured at rear) as they are the layers of brown eggs. The easter eggers (hogging the spotlight up front) will have blue and/or green eggs.