Our girls are five months old now and are beginning to lay.  By rights, they can be officially called “pullets” and are of an age that makes them suitable for frying.  I have not mentioned this latter fact to them as thus far, anyway, fried chicken is not in our menu plans. However, if they don’t get this egg-laying thing perfected pretty soon, all bets are off.

We think that only two of the girls have begun to lay.  They are giving us brown eggs every other day or so.  We haven’t tried to catch them in the act – after all, there are privacy issues – but we think the eggs are being produced by the two Wyandotts.  The other two who are Americaunas are supposed to produce blue-green eggs and we haven’t seen any of those yet.

However, the Wyandotts have been right on schedule.  According to all the literature, chickens begin laying when they are 20 to 24 weeks old (Check!) and, at first the eggs are often small (Check, again!)  During the first year a hen lays about 20 dozen (240) eggs and will lay about 1,000 in her lifetime.

It’s not the number of eggs we are concerned with.  It’s the shape.  The first several were the traditional shape, though small.  This is to be expected say the chicken-and-egg experts.  Generally the shape of the egg is determined by the pressures exerted by the walls of the oviduct ( egg passage ) within the hen. A good healthy hen has strong muscles, which push the egg through fairly quickly, and mold the egg’s shape as the shell is being formed. The ‘point’ is produced by the muscles pushing on the back half of the egg to move it through the passage.  

 During the last several days, however, the eggs have taken on a different shape.  Very elongated.  Almost tubular you might say.  In fact, one is so long and sticks up so high that we can’t close the egg carton over it.  The closest reference to this situation is this:  The shape of the egg has an added advantage for the hen. It stops the egg from rolling away from the nest. In the case of some seabirds who nest on cliff ledges, the shape is so stretched that the eggs are actually tapered like a cone.

So, do our girls think they are seabirds?  Do they feel precariously perched in their nest boxes?  Do we need to design new egg cartons?  Will they settle down to proper shaping soon?  There are always intriguing questions when it comes to chickens and eggs…