Once the chickens begin to look like chickens and not cute, fluffy babies, you begin to wonder, “When will my chickens start laying eggs?” There is a super-simple answer to that question: When they get darn good and ready (and not a minute before).
My research told me that the girls should starting laying between 6-8 months. Well, 6-8 months came and went, and there was nothing……….notta. Every day I headed out to the coop, anticipating a beautiful egg. And every day I found the same thing: the golf ball I had placed in the laying box to give the chickens a brilliant idea. Apparently, they didn’t agree.
I did more research. I followed every suggestion you can imagine, including placing lavender potpourri in the laying boxes. Yes, I really did. I read that the chickens need aromatherapy to relax enough to pop out an egg. My family thought I was losing it. The coop smelled nice for about 3.5 seconds. And then someone pooped…again.
So, I did what every farming book tells you not to do…I gave up. I was determined to just be happy with my sweet little friends. I was a chicken farmer whose destiny did not include eggs, except at the grocery store. I’ll have to admit, I was deep into thoughts of what the chickens would taste like on the grill when….yes….you guessed it…..I got AN EGG!!!!!
I honestly can’t even remember being as excited on Christmas morning as a child. As I’ve said before, I’m a little pathetic. There is, however, a huge satisfaction that comes from growing something you eat. You know where everything originated that went into the production of the food. It just feels amazing. However, one egg does not a dozen make. Oh, and it was a rubber egg. I mean, it actually had no shell. Eww.
Turns out that sometimes the first eggs can be without a shell if the chicken’s reproductive organs haven’t quite matured yet. It took that chicken about four eggs until it all came out correctly. They are actually fine to eat, I tried the ones that made it from the coop to the house without getting squished.
It seemed that after the first chicken started laying, they all began to catch on. From four chickens, I was getting between two and four eggs per day. I had no more rubber eggs, but my other chickens laid teeny, tiny eggs for a while. It’s like anything, I suppose. It takes a bit to get it all together.
In retrospect, there was only one reliable sign that egg laying was going to happen in the near future. My chickens started doing this really weird squatting thing every time I started to pet them. (Yes, I pet my chickens. I also hug them. They absolutely hate it, but somehow it is meaningful to me. Once again, pathetic.) This squatting is, apparently, the mating position for the rooster. I know…too much information. But it was a few days after they started doing this weird thing that I got eggs.
So the moral of the story is: Hug your chickens today!
Ok…actually, the moral of the story is: Don’t rush nature. It will do its own thing on its own sweet timeline. To quote a very reliable source, “To every season, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the Heaven…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Probably a little deep for the chickens, but great guidance for the rest of us.
Hugs and blessings always,
LITTLE JEN in the BIG WOODS
