Ten!

First of all, I need to say a great big thank you to our girls!  They provided us with the most delicious eggs to make french toast for all of our friends and family on the morning after our wedding.

Clearly, they are working hard.  They are working SO hard, in fact, that when we checked on them one morning, there were THREE chickens in the nesting box all at once.  (Actually, there were four when we peeked in, but when we opened the back door, only three stayed put.)

See Farrah Fawcett underneath Elizabeth and Beth?

We needed to collect the eggs, and we thought the gals would scoot when Jon reached in, but they didn't.  After a few minutes, one of the three took a stroll, but clearly when it's time to work, the girls take their job very seriously!

Most of the girls lay in the boxes now.  Or should I say box?  They like the one at the end.  I honestly think that if we find an egg in the second box (as we did this particular day), it's by accident that someone dropped it there.  Finding six to eight eggs in a single nesting box is fine with us.  It's more trouble when one of the girls (and there are one or two) who prefer to lay their eggs on the ground!

With Abby away in Indiana visiting her Nana and Grandpa, I've got to go into the four-foot high tractor to collect these wayward eggs!

All in all, we are enjoying the girls very much.  They are fun to visit each day.  They get excited when they see us coming, probably because they always get a treat of corn scratch, Japanese Beetles, or veggie scraps.  It still feels good to see them get fired up as we walk across the field.  And I still think one chicken in particular is really fond of us.

This is Betty.  I can tell by the markings on her beak.  She nearly always comes up to us wherever we are standing, even if it's at the window.

The girls are in their fourth week of production, and their numbers have gone up significantly.  For example, in week one, we got a total of ten eggs.  Today alone, July 29th, we got a total of ten!  It was the biggest day yet, but the girls are averaging eight eggs a day now.

Most of the eggs are medium sized, ranging from 1 and 3/4 ounce to 1 and 7/8 ounce.  But so far this week we've gotten nine large eggs (2 ounces), with two days to go.  Last week we got a total of five.  In the first two weeks, we got a total of three larges.  So production is up and so is egg size!  Go, girls, go!

If you are in the neighborhood and you need some eggs...give us a shout!