Wednesday, February 07, 2007

ooh, ooh, must tell......

I don't think I have ever posted twice in one day, but this afternoon there was much excitement in the hen house. Our hens are starting to come back into lay now, the most eggs we've had in one day is 5 so far. You can generally tell which ones are either laying or about to come into lay as their combs go really red. I've been keeping an eye on them all, the light sussex are laying, one of the rhode Island reds is laying and a couple of the little wyandottes, probably the red ones, but some of the others are starting to go really red too.
So, this afternoon when I went into collect the eggs, I found 2 in the little corner where some of them seem to be laying and there were 2 in the nesting box closest to the door, a nesting box that hardly ever gets used (we have 5, but they generally only lay in 2 or 3 of them). To my delight, both the eggs are a gorgeous blue colour, a complete surprise as I didn't think any of our hens laid blue eggs. So, I am now left wondering are these eggs from 2 of the three blue laced wyandottes that we have (2 of them are very red in the comb) or are they from the apricot call ducks? As far as I'm aware, the ducks will only lay about 10 eggs in the year and are more likely to go off and build a nest somewhere, lay their eggs and then come back with ducklings (or am I being completely naive in thinking this - they'll probably all get eaten by the mink?). So only time will tell, I really hope that it's the little wyandottes that have laid them as then we'd have lovely blue eggs to add to the deep brown and white eggs we get from the others. Here's a picture of todays eggs.


Will keep you posted, it's no wonder I never get any work done!

10 comments:

Ginny Gibson said...

Oh Wow eee. What gorgeous colours and great names your breeds all have. You learn something new everyday.

Best wishes Ginny

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa,
Great news about Fifi and Ally (wonderful name that), Primrose Hill is going to be very well known.
Those eggs are beautiful. I have to confess that I once said that if I ever had hens again they would be Cotswald Legbars or Aracunas just for the blue eggs. That was before we found out about the battery hen rescue. Incidently I posted pictures of the chickens today, but not the eggs (large brown) Stuart is eating them too quickly!
Carolyn

deb said...

Those eggs are so pretty. I love hearing about this.. I've often dreamed of having hens at our house. :)

Anonymous said...

Such beautiful eggs! I love the colors!

Nonnie said...

Beautiful eggs. How exciting to go and gather your own eggs, especially when they're as lovely as these. I would love to have my own hens one day.

VintagePretty said...

I envy you your hens so much - if I thought we could trust that little hooligans wouldn't do away with ours I'd have some in a heartbeat (we've always desperately wanted some!). Duck and goose eggs make wonderful cakes!

Anonymous said...

Well I do apologise for leaving an 'anonymous' comment. Obviously I and another 'anonymous' someone did not think it was an issue as you have not blocked this being able to happen. No need to feel freaked out in the future as I will read and not comment.

Primrose Hill said...

Egg update - I think it is probably the ducks that are laying them, there is another one in the hen house today and ducks tend to lay quite early in the morning. So this weekend some cake baking shall be done, as Vintage Pretty says duck eggs are fab for baking. The geese should hopefully start laying soon too, supposedly on 14th Feb!
we have a fair bit of snow and it's snowing really heavy just now so I shall try and get some nice snowy pictures today and post them later.
L x

weirdbunny said...

Before the fox ate a tasty dinner of our ducks, they laid white eggs. I adore your blue eggs. I'd have have boiled egg rather than the easier and quicker scrambled egg for my lunch each day, so I could admire the blue shell.

Rachel said...

Sounds like some baking is going to be happening!! Pretty eggs!