As you’d expect, an egg laying chicken farm prizes the egg! Every egg is more than simply the 33 pennies we receive in the carton, we’ve put months of nurturing and maintaining a chicken laying eggs. Summer or winter the chicken needs to be given attention and care. The ideal plan is to have a house where there is clean, colorful, perfectly shaped eggs awaiting a happy farmer when he opens the hatch to the nest box. The reality is a daily hunt for eggs, knowing these beauties are gold! No eggs, no income! The history of hunting for eggs is an adventure! Let’s start with the first moving of the hen house. The day after that our hens were laying eggs in the gravel where the house was at. I think that was the first rogue lay. Now that the Ameracaunas are at the adult laying age, it is an all-out chase down trying to find these eggs! Found eggs under the pine tree, in spooled hoses, deep in the front yard’s tall 8 foot African grass, in my toolbox, in the chicken hospital, in the hay bales, deep under the hen house and the pullet house, behind and in front of the barn door, in the flower pot, in the corner of the house, and in the pullet feeder. Hard to know where you’ll find eggs. In the cold weather you have to find them before they freeze and crack, which means a throw-away. If the shells get dirty and they get filthy…you have to get them cleaned quick because the shells absorb colors making stain marks on the shells. I’ve tried cleansing solutions and they don’t work, at least if you follow the directions. Some shell colors come off easier than others, like dark eggs, which receives their coloring right before the hen lays. Dad and I eat the eggs that don’t clean sufficient enough to sell. We have a place in the fridge for “dirty eggs” to eat.
