EGGS!!! Finally!!!

We finally have eggs!!

We got one on Friday, one on Saturday and THREE on Sunday including one from Arica our Americauna hen. Her eggs are GREEN! How fun is that! First is the picture of our first little lone egg...then we got the second picture is the HUGE Americauna green one next to a white one from Kroger. Then all of the eggs together. The one Brown egg (from one of the Buffies) and the Green egg are beyond JUMBO. In the next day or two I will use them and find out if we have any double yokes. That happens sometimes when they first start laying.














Oh, I bet you are wondering about Arica and Star...I forgot to update with our newest additions. There was a person in Johnstown that needed to downsize his flock. Later, I would decide that he is less than trustworthy. Anyway. He said his birds were already laying and that it should prompt ours to start laying too. So I got a Black Star (named Star) who lays brown eggs, and a Americauna, sometimes know as an "Easter-Egger" as they lay green, blue, pink or brown eggs. Her name is now Arica. She is very pretty. Both are black. Star is so black that she has almost a green tint to her feathers. Arica has a brown almost tiger pattern on her feathers.

After I got them back home, I discovered that I was an idiot and didn't inspect them before I left the farm. Both had patches on their back that had the feathers broken off at the skin. And Star has a deformed foot that doesn't work at all. Both had mites. Still I put powder on to kill the mites and put them in the coop. I didn't realize just how BIG the buffies are until I saw these two with them. They looked like.BLONDE.AMAZON.BIRDS! Immediately the whole "pecking order" stuff started. Dumpling did not like the newcomers (she was the current TOP.BIRD) and was picking on them all the time. The two new birds decided to hide out in the nest box the MAN had built for all the birdie. After they made a royal mess of that, I blocked it so no one could get in.

Then Dumpling got sick. I thought maybe she was egg-bound, and won't know for sure because MAN took care of her little body for me. But another local farmer at the feed store took me under his wing (HAHAHA). The day after we lost Dumpling, Arica had bubbles coming out of her eyes...Yes, very odd indeed, and enough to freak me out! So I ran down to the local feed store, the new owner couldn't help me, but called the previous owner (a farmer of 50+ years) and we talked on the phone for 20 minutes. He said that he didn't think that Dumpling was eggbound, that she likely had an upper respiratory infection (yes, my chickens had a cold!) and now Arica had it and likely all the rest were on their way to getting it. There is nothing more pathetic than a chicken sneezing!

So armed with antibiotic that is good for ALL livestock, and as my new farmer friend said, "if your kid gets sick, put a spoonful in his milk, he'll be right as rain. It's the only thing I use!" So as MAN put it, we have new FARM-aceuticals. HAHAHA!

We rigged up a light to warm up the coop, and put the antibiotics in the water. And within a few days, all was better. So that is how it comes to be that we lost one chicken and yet still have 4! AND.FINALLY.HAVE.EGGS!!