My parents animal-sat while we were on vacation. I didn’t ask them to hunt for eggs in the yard, of course, and had almost forgotten about the two tiny chicken eggs we’d found the week before. But, yesterday the distinctive “bu-KAWK! buck-buck-buck bu-KAWK!” sound of a chicken complaining while laying eggs made me look behind the crawlspace entrance, from where the sound was emanating. There were eleven, still tiny, brown eggs collected there. 🙂
I suspect this is a single hen laying early- at only four months old. But, we’ll see, maybe several are sharing this “nest.”
Here is a comparison of their size to a duck egg (white)- our duck eggs are pretty large, but these chicken eggs are itty bitty- about half normal size. I expect them to get larger as the hens mature.
I used some in cooking last night (two eggs where one is called for…). One of them was a double-yolker! Double yolks are just a mistake in the body’s egg manufacturing process, they happen from time to time. I’ve seen a lot of egg oddities, it seems that every now and then a hen will lay a weird one amongst a string of normal ones- tiny eggs, yolk-less eggs, or soft-shelled eggs happen too.
When I find eggs in the yard and I’m not sure if they were laid that day, I treat them a little specially. I never sell those to customers, but mark them or set them aside in a different container. Sometimes they just go in the dog food- dogs will even eat “found” rotten eggs, by choice, :-0 so there is no concern of how old the eggs are for them! If I use them in cooking, I crack each one separately in a little bowl, to make sure it’s ok. Eggs stay viable in natural air for a week or two waiting to be incubated. If they are very runny or smell bad, then I know they’re dog food. But they are almost always OK, even these, that have probably been piling up for a week in the secret nest.
i guess they will always obey nature and lay wherever they choose.
I am waiting for the first egg from my 2 girls who are 20 weeks old today.
Gill
http://www.thetowniechicken.wordpress.com