This was a morning of surprise. Our first eggs appeared, three of them, all in nesting boxes and not the floor! The hen pictured just above is in the process of laying number five. I thought we were getting close, all the hens were wanting me to hold them, instead of trying to catch them.
I left the three eggs in the nest, thinking, this will help them figure out that the nesting box is the place to lay their eggs.The fourth egg was an elongated egg with a double yolk inside, the hen broke it as it was being laid. They seem relaxed and ready for this new phase of their lives. I must mention, I checked the moon phase and found we are no where near a full moon, but all the animals on the farm are exhibiting behavior that is not the day to day. The rams are ramming, Iggy the stallion, is showing off for all the girls, cantering circles around his paddock at full speed. The mares are squealing, hens laying their first eggs, oh it's noisy and active around here today! I think it's the fall light affecting the animals, have you noticed a change in light in your area.
To celebrate the occasion a treat was prepared for the girls, baby kale and shredded carrots for all. There are still twelve more first eggs to be laid, so many more celebrations are coming our way. With eggs the topic of the day, I decided to look up the history of how an egg got it's name, here is what I found:
"The egg...tracks it name back to a prehistoric Indo-European source related to words for 'bird'...The Old English term was oeg, which survived in Middle English as ey (plural eyren)....But in the fourteenth century the related egg was borrowed from Old Norse. For a time the two forms competed with each other (William Caxton, in the prologue to his Book of Eneydos (1490), asked 'What should a man in these day now write, eggs or eyren, certainly it is hard to please every man'), and the Norse form did not finally emerge as the winner until the late sixteenth century." ---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxrod] 2002 (p. 117)
To first eggs...
Update..so far the next day, no eggs, one seems to be trying. The morning appears to be the time for laying eggs.
~ Deb
* Last time in Barn Stories: Maui
