Week 4 egg production stats and egg eating update

We're averaging eight eggs a day, not including the two that were eaten by the chickens on Friday

 

The chickens have laid 74 eggs now...three dozen are boxed up and waiting to be delivered to new homes tomorrow.  Some we gave away, and two dozen we ate ourselves...boiled, scrambled, omelets, bread, béchamel sauce, spaetzle.  I was going to make and freeze a bunch of pasta, but it will have to wait until the chickens lay some more.

 

 



Our eggs don't fit in a standard size egg box, so we're not sure how to transport them.  We're using a rubber band for now.

Ideas?

The chickens didn't eat any more of their own eggs after the one day of egg eating.  For two days after that we collected the eggs every few hours in the morning (the chickens really only lay in the morning).  Now we're back to checking on them once or twice during the day.  We've found up to five eggs in a single nest, all intact. 

On Sunday our neighbor brought us a bale of hay he grew, which set off a morning of cleaning out the coop, removing the cardboard boxes we brought the chickens home in, and installing more permanent nesting boxes.  The chickens seem entertained by their new environment, although they only lay an occasional egg in the nest boxes we built.  Their favorite spots are now behind the bike wheels in one corner and behind the new hay bale in the other corner.

We did however collect three slightly fractured eggs.  Two of these were from the Auracana, who is always being chased off her nest and ends up laying in the middle of the floor.  Hopefully having some more straw in the coop will help with this (so the eggs have a soft landing), but the chickens seem determined to express their creativity in finding awkward places to lay.  They also sit with their heads close to the ground and their backside in the air as they're laying, so the eggs begin their existence with a 4" drop to the ground.  Fun fact.