Honey lays her first egg of the year

It’s all going on here with first eggs of the year being laid. Honey has been very vocal for the last few days and very nosey when any of the girls are in the nest box. I had wondered if she was getting ready to lay.

At lunch time today she was settled in the nest box with pine shavings flicked over her back.

You can’t see Honey as she she is hiding under pine shavings

When we heard shouting from the girls and checked in on them Honey had laid a soft shelled egg and the girls were eating it. I scooped up the remains and the sticky damp shavings, removed them, then added fresh shavings.

I remembered that Honey had laid a soft shelled egg at the start of last year and when I checked my records she had in fact laid the first egg with no shell at all and the second with a soft shell then normal shells from then on.

As this is her fourth year of laying I am quite pleased that although this egg had a soft shell she managed to pass it and didn’t look poorly before doing so like she has in the past. She seems just fine now and as she is no spring chicken (excuse the pun) I am rather pleased that she is doing so well.

She has also laid this egg a month earlier than she laid her first one last year. I am wondering if more light in the run is causing an earlier start to laying. We didn’t put a tarpaulin over the newer part of the run this year as it made the run darker and didn’t stop it being wet.

I have also removed some tarpaulin from the side of the run by the patio area and recently chopped back the big bush. A combination of these things allows more light into the run.

Other news is that Speckles jumped on my back this morning for the first time. The only bantam girls that have ever jumped on my back up until now have been Peaches and Barley and I have had them since they were six weeks old.

As Speckles was between one and two years old and so very nervous when we first got her this is a heart warming transformation in her. I never imagined she would jump on me when we first had her.

Also just for my records I am more than half way through worming the girls at the moment. It has been six months since I last wormed them and I thought I would get it done before they started laying but have had three girl’s first eggs three days running.

Two more days of flubenvet to go. I am mixing it in little dishes of things the girls like such as, fish, scrambled egg, yogurt, chopped grapes etc. I put three dishes down and keep a fourth one back to drop bits in front of Speckles to make sure she gets some as she still gets chased from the treats by the other girls.

She seems to have cottoned on to me helping her out and I am satisfied she is getting some each day. She nearly jumped on my back again this evening but misjudged it and dropped back down again. This seems to be her new thing.

Peaches has just laid her third egg and is now laying every other day. We will soon have an abundance of eggs. We are having an omelette tonight for dinner from our own girls eggs. Hurrah!