Today is a great day, we received our first egg! I’m a newbie chicken momma and I’ve never kept chickens before so apologies for my over-zealous reaction, I’m just so extremely happy and want to share my joy. Our ladies arrived on the 3rd October 2021 and our first egg arrived today on the 17th November 2021 (6 weeks and 3 days later). Hubby wakes up early for work and is the chicken pappa who feeds them and lets them out of their coop into the run. I told him to come and wake me up when the first egg arrived. For over 6 weeks now I can’t ever go back to sleep and I wait patiently in bed until I hear him return and wash his hands but he never comes back into the bedroom to share good news, he heads off down to the office for a day of work and I get a little deflated. We just assumed our ladies were a little too young to start laying eggs and we estimated that they might have only been around 12 weeks when we got them. We had a bet on when we would get our first egg and I said Christmas Day whereas hubby said mid November. Damn, I lost again!

This morning hubby ventured out as usual around 7am and there was not an egg in sight. At around midday I decided to go and feed them some butternut squash and hang out with them for a while. They are so cute now and let me stroke their silky feathers. Hubby popped out with me to see them briefly and he noticed an egg on the coop floor. It was just sat right in the middle of the floor amongst the wood shavings. I obviously thought he was playing a prank on me as the egg looked too perfect and very clean. We had talked about pranking each other and I was tempted to superglue some feathers onto a store purchased egg from our kitchen and place it in the nesting box to trick him but I didn’t think I would be able to keep a straight face and not laugh. He promised he did not place it there and I made him promise on Josh’s life. We have a family thing where if we say something and the other one wants to know for sure if we are lying we make them say “On Josh’s life” e.g. “On Josh’s life, I did not place an egg there” and this way we know the other is telling the truth. This all started years ago as we have a standing family joke that Josh (my son) is my favourite child so if we say on Josh’s life we have to be telling the truth otherwise something really bad is going to happen to Josh. It sounds a bit weird but it’s a sure way of knowing if hubby, Teanna (my daughter) or myself are lying or telling the truth as if we are lying we will never say it and it works for us (ha ha).

Once I realised that one of my ladies had laid their first egg I was delighted. I then tried to establish who laid the egg but no one would admit to it. My money is on Carol. I am going to try and keep count of how many eggs we get as I am fascinated to see how many we will get in a whole year. I wonder how many we will get tomorrow and if they will keep laying on the floor instead of the nesting boxes. They have beautiful upcycled nesting boxes with shabby chic handmade curtains lovingly made by my daughter but I don’t think they have ever ventured inside one. My next challenge is to encourage them to lay inside the nesting boxes. I’m always up for a challenge. I LOVE my ladies: Carol, Michonne, Maggie and Judith. They are great family pets and I really enjoy hanging out with them as they are so much fun to watch and now we’re rewarded with fresh eggs which is an added bonus. I am super intrigued as to how many eggs I will find tomorrow. Simple pleasures bring so much joy and I’m one proud chicken momma.

Finders, Keepers

Here is the location where we found the egg.

The first Egg with a view

I took multiple photos of this first egg as I am so proud, I even did a happy dance (ha ha).

Cabbage Fun

Butternut Squash reward

As a reward for laying an egg I rewarded my ladies with some butternut squash. I think they like it more than I do!

Thank you ladies

Update:

3 out of 4 of my ladies are now delivering me a fresh egg each day. It’s a bit random as one day there will be an egg in the end nesting box and another in the one next to it and another day there will be two in the end nesting box and one in the box next to it. The eggs are slightly different in colour and size and it’s difficult to tell who laid which egg. Hubby has attempted to set his bicycle camera up in the coop on his tripod but the cheeky birds knocked it over. We did catch a time lapse of them hopping in and out of the different nesting boxes and a clear shot of Michonne laying an egg.

Free Range

Whenever I am gardening I let my ladies out of their coop to free range in the top garden. They absolutely love to dig in the earth and eat my weeds. Our top tier of the garden is a natural mess with weeds and it houses our compost bin. I could sit here all day watching them have fun and staring at the panoramic views. Such a joy for late November, I never knew that chickens would be such great pets and entertainment.

Eggs Galore – Cooking Therapy

Our gorgeous ladies (Carol, Michonne, Maggie and Judith) are rewarding us with 4 eggs daily. With an abundance of eggs there’s only one thing to do on a rainy day in Central Portugal: Mr & Mrs Eggy Bake Off! We lovingly made together: Meringues, Custard, Lemon Curd and Bolo Laranja, we also made a gigantic shitty mess in the kitchen (ha ha). Not quite master chef but tasty homemade treats using up our eggs. Our oven slightly over cooked the cake as it is a bit temperamental whereas I’m just mental (ha ha). It will be O.K as it will be smothered in custard. First time ever making homemade meringues and custard as I grew up the 80’s so it was always Birds custard but there is no way I am paying 5.25 for a tub of Birds custard powder from the British aisle. I’ve already eaten 2 meringues with lemon curd, delicious and the oranges and lemons are from the garden too. Not my garden but hubby is great at pilfering from the neighbours tree when the sun goes down. Don’t panic we do swaps with our lovely Portuguese neighbour, we share the LOVE.

A Gift from my Hens

Look what my Ladies got me for Christmas! An amazing egg dispenser, I LOVE it!

WOW – World Record

The World Record for the largest omelette was set in Portugal (2012). Chefs in Santarém, Portugal took 6 hours to create a 6.46 ton omelette with 145,000 eggs! Now I LOVE an omelette but 3 eggs is sufficient for me, I’m not sure I could manage 145,000 eggs (ha ha).