Posted by on Sep 17, 2013 in Backyard Brood, Blog, Featured Post | 305 comments

It happened!!! We’ve got eggs! That’s right, not one egg, but TWO in one day. Last Thursday, while my parents were en route to our place for a day of leisure in the backyard (what good timing!), one little gal marched up into the coop and bock-bock-bock-ba-cock! Laid a small light brown egg right where she should in the nest box.

Here’s how it went down, in photos, once we noticed Dottie was up to something:

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Curiosity got the better of us and we took turns peeking in at Dottie. It seems a lot of time was spent rearranging the hay until it was just so. There was a cackle, an egg song. Your classic chicken cry – bock-bock-bock-ba-cock! And then…

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Dottie nonchalantly descended the ramp and went back to grazing in the yard. She seemed to take it all in stride – all in a chicken-day’s work. Ok, maybe there was a detectable swagger in her step for a few minutes.

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Hoping this wasn’t a false alarm, we peered into the nest box to find – ta-da – The First Egg!

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Still warm. There was much rejoicing, and wonder!

Then not two hours later, we start to wonder, “Where’s Bella?”

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We do our spying routine and see she’s nestled down in the same spot.

(What you don’t see here is Bella rushing in and out of the coop, up and down, up and down, pacing all over the yard, unsure what to do before finally settling down.)

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A good two hours later, here we are! Egg number two.

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After all that worry, Bella calmed back down to her normal self. Do you have a treat?

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And again, there was much rejoicing and awe at our miniature bounty.
Since the two eggs are different shapes, it’s easy to tell them apart, and that’s been the case with the eggs that have arrived since.

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That afternoon, we could not wait for an official meal. We had a feast!

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Of two eggs, over easy. They are small and compact, little puffy clouds with a tall orange sun nestled in the whites.

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With wee toasties, these eggs were the freshest and tasted just great. I’d heard they might taste like their feed, or have an odd shell, but they seemed to be perfect.

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Nom!

So far these two girls have continued to lay every 26 hours or so, except when that time falls in the night, in which case they lay in the early morning. Nine eggs! Now who’s next?