I know this may be silly but we are jumping up and down about our first egg and I wanted to share it with you because so many at this forum have been very helpful in our poultry endeavors. Thanks! I was expecting a tiny little practice egg but it looks like a medium sized egg!

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), September 02, 2001

Answers

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S ! ! ! Give my best to the hen, too.

-- Nancy (NAWoodward@lakewebs.net), September 02, 2001.

Congrats! Your a chick grandmother!

-- debra in ks (windfish@toto.net), September 02, 2001.

Sorry, make that an egg granmother!

-- debra in ks (windfish@toto.net), September 02, 2001.

That is so cool. I remember our first egg.I ran in the house and showed all my kids. I think they thought i was nuts . P.S We also had a chicken lay an egg mid air.

-- Dennis Humphrey (lovinlife9315109@aol.com), September 02, 2001.

Good for you! We just got ours a few weeks ago. If you didn't eat it, you can carefully let it sit out in a safe place, and eventually it will completely dry out on the inside, and you can keep it always. Unfortunately, I cracked mine, so we ate it instead....Or, maybe it was fortunate, because it was pretty tasty....

-- marcee king (thathope@mwt.net), September 02, 2001.

Good for you! I know how exciting that is. My pullets are due to start laying any day now, and I am checking impatiently for that first egg. Two years ago, the first egg of that batch was found in the water bucket. The hen must have sat down on the edge of the bucket and laid it into the water! As I remember, it had no shell on it at all. Just the egg insides.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), September 02, 2001.

Congrats ! We just got our first egg, from one of the two we hatched. Our daughter was so eggcited( sorry couldn't help myself). This egg wasn't near as small as our hens began laying last year, it's about a medium too. Our Daughter gave this home hatched pullet to her Grandad for his birthday so now he has something to show for this gift, free eggs, she insisted that he take his pullets eggs.

-- Kelle in MT. (kvent1729@aol.com), September 03, 2001.

Yep-we just got out first two this week :) I know how you feel--I think I made more noise about it than the hen did!

-- Brendan K Callahan (Grinnell, IA) (sleeping@iowatelecom.net), September 03, 2001.

Make mine scrambled! The first one of many.

-- Tom S. (trdsshepard@yahoo.com), September 03, 2001.

Congratulations Ann. I fondly remember those days of anxiously waiting for that "first" egg and being so excited. But actually my "first" egg was chocolate. I had been so excited to be getting chickens. I had prepared the chicken house almost as if it were a nursery. My first chickens were almost wild and not only would they not nest in any of the neat little nesting boxes I'd so carefully made for them, I couldn't even get them in the chicken house. Realizing how disappointed I was, DH quietly snuck out on Easter morning and put two beautifully foil wrapped chocolate eggs in the nest for me to find.

Wishing you enough.

-- Trevilians (aka Dianne in Mass) (Trevilians@mediaone.net), September 03, 2001.

Oh boy, they're reviving up those hen engines now. get some empty egg cartons ready! I still have the picture of the very 1st egg i found tucked down in the nest box. Dark brown...just sitting there. i'd never had chickens before so this was a grand event, thus the picture. Wait til you begin recognize which eggs came from which hens. people think i'm a tad looney when i can tell them white eggs came from either thelma or louise, the tan long eggs are from rusty, the dark brown are from stimpy, etc.! Congratulations!

-- Buk Buk (bukabuk@hotmail.com), September 03, 2001.

Congratulations! I know JUST HOW YOUR FEEL! Our chickens started laying the third week in July and these were my very first chickens too and my mama said I was acting like I laid every egg myself!!!

We have five ARacuana "Easter egg" chickens that should start laying any day now so I'm looking forward to my first colored egg now!( the others are beautiful shades of tan!)

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), September 03, 2001.

Congradulations. My new hens(production red) are now just a little over 4 months old, so I'm patiently waiting for my first brown eggs to start coming in.

-- r.h.in Okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), September 03, 2001.

Congradulations! I am still waiting for my first egg from my girls.

-- JackieFla (miller672@cs.com), September 03, 2001.

OOh I remeber the excitement of our first home grown egg! It almost but not quite rivalled the thrill of our eldests first tooth! Congratulations. I had one pullet that laid a huge double yolker for a first egg and after that laid one egg (same size!) every second day. Oh how she squawked the first time! Can't say as I blame her. :o) Good for you Ann!

-- Alison in N.S. (aproteau@istar.ca), September 03, 2001.

Ann, Congratulations!!!! I am a chicken raisng fool and I know which eggs my big hens lay. My banties are a little harder to match. In the incubator/banty hen contest, the banties out-hatched the incubator about 75 to 0!

-- Karen Mauk (kansasgoats@iwon.com), September 04, 2001.

See! I knew Ya'll would understand! Now waiting for Egg # 2.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), September 04, 2001.

YEE-HAH! I hit the jackpot this morning! I found 5 (F-I-V-E) pullet eggs in the back corner of the henhouse! Fried every one of them for hubby.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), September 04, 2001.

My first egg I put in a box I lined with fabric and set it on the table for the family to see. A beautiful, brown shelled egg. No one could touch it, only look.

Oh!, the simple pleasures of life.

-- Cordy (ckaylegian@aol.com), September 04, 2001.

CONGRATS ON YOUR FIRST EGG!!! MAY THERE BE MANY MANY MORE

When we got our first, my then husband was so excited. He called the neighbor and told them all about it. The man on the other end said how great that was.and then he told him he had called the wrong number. He had mixed up the last two numbers.

-- Alexa Krain (DrMom5775@aol.com), September 05, 2001.

When I was 11, one of my biology projects was to take an old incubator that needed work, and fix it, and hatch some eggs. It was as extra credit project. So, I go out to a friends house that had roosters and hens, and got five eggs, hopefully fertilized, and on a whim, the friend gave me two duck eggs. So, I get home and put an 'x' on each egg so each morning before school I could turn them over. After about ten days, I fixed up an old lamp so I could candle the eggs. What a great thing this project was !!! So, after about 30 days? -- two of the chickens hatched and BOTH ducks did too.

Being 11, and opening that incubator door to see one of the eggs cracked just a bit, and putting the others up to my ear to hear the "peck - peck - peck" noise, it was sooooo hard to go to school that day. I come home, run in, open the door and there are 2 baby chickens all fluffy and yellow and there are TWO ducks, all cuddled up on the rack. I raise these four together. Through parental persuasion, I gave the chickens back to the farmer I got the eggs from, but would NOT part with the ducks. These two ducks, Bubbles and Joey, would follow me everywhere. I'd take off on my bike to ball practice and if I didn't have the pen shut, they'd waddle off and follow me.

Well, as Bubbles and Joey got bigger and winter approached, I had to build them a warm house full of straw. That spring, Bubbles started laying eggs. I think if I remember correctly, I had about 2 dozen in the box, that I would guard. My Dad was wanting one for breakfast but no way no how, was that going to happen. I was gone to summer camp and when I got home, Bubbles would not come out of the house. I peered in a sure enough she'd laid 13 eggs and was sitting on them. I had no clue when she started so each day I'd go out and check the nest. Finally one foggy morning I opened the hatch to the hutch, and 11 baby ducks went scurrying to get under "Momma". Even to this day, and I am 45 now,... I still get a little emotional thinking about that morning. Hope I didn't bore anyone with my sappy 'egg' story.

Have a good one !!!

RMC

-- Hambone (noemail@please.com), October 26, 2001.