Homestead Friday Update!

Finally!  Our newest chickens have begun laying eggs!  We are getting 8-9 a day and expect more in the next month or so.

We had been waiting quite a while to see some eggs from our new hens.  We were seeing all the signs but no eggs!  We tried everything to get them laying.  Apple cider vinegar, putting golf balls in the laying boxes (tricks them into thinking there eggs and lets them know that is where they should be laying) and even setting up another laying area outside in case laying boxes in the coop weren't doing it for them.  Still no eggs!  We thought they were laying somewhere in the woods or around the perimeter of the house.  We searched high and low.  No eggs.

Then one Sunday evening some friends of ours came over to try let their daughter try out her new shot gun in our backyard (because you can do that in the country!).  As my husband moved the clay bird thrower away from the side of the garage....Jackpot!!

(He found 34 eggs in a pile right by the garage.  Chickens are sneaky little creatures!)

Now you are probably wondering if we ate the eggs, since they had been sitting outside for who knows how long.  The answer is yes and no.  There are certain techniques you can use to check to see if the egg is good.

1.  Float the egg in a mixing bowl of water.  If it floats or it bottoms up then it's probably not good.  

2.  If you crack the egg and the yolk immediately breaks or looks flat then pitch it.

3.  Of course if it smells and looks off then it's probably best to throw it away.  

We saved 26 of the 34 eggs.  We started with the floating method and saved the rest.  When we went to eat the others and they looked off we threw them out.  We probably ended up eating 15 of the 34 eggs.

Like I said, we are getting 8-9 eggs a day right now.  So what are we doing with all the extra eggs?  We hard boil one dozen a week, make frozen egg/cheese breakfast tortillas for the kids out of 2 dozen (which lasts us about 8 days) and we eat 1 dozen a week.  If we have breakfast for dinner, which we do every other week, then we use a whole dozen for that meal.  We heard of someone dehydrating eggs, so we may start trying that as well.  If we end up with more than we can handle, then we will start selling them!

Next Friday....Busy Bee update!