The egg and I
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Just a few minutes ago, I gathered my eggs. It's like Easter morning every day. With this mixture of chickens I've acquired, the resulting eggs are every color of the rainbow. And every size.
In the language of the resident CEO, which I am, our production, right now, is more than a dozen eggs a day. I save them in individual cartons so that I can see what a "day's lay" looks like.
"You're really getting into this egg business," said Tooltime Tim as I dragged out a dozen eggs from the refrigerator with pride.
"Look at these," I said. "Can you believe all the colors? There's rose, tan, white, light blue, brown, green, and pink. Isn't it amazing?"
What's amazing, according to TTT, is my enthusiasm for the project. It's also amazing how much feed these mature birds can consume in one day. They are eating like a house-a-fire.
"Hmm," I muttered a month or two ago, "these chicks are going to cost me about $40 a month to feed."
"Those are going to be mighty expensive eggs," said my sister. "You're going to have to charge $15 a dozen."
"Just think, however, what wonderful eggs these will be," I retorted. "These eggs are not your ordinary run-of-the-mill eggs, produced by run-of-the-mill chickens. These are happy, contented (although until recently extremely rooster-harassed), unusual chickens producing eggs that are colored — lovely shades of blue, green, and brown. These chicks are fed fresh cucumbers, sliced squash, whole grains, and shredded carrots — it's a wonder Mom isn't giving them purified water!"
"Well, I guess you can say, it's a dollar's worth of eggs and $14 dollars worth of experience." This was my kin at their most caustic.
We harvested more roosters from the flock this past week. Now we are down to just two — and they'd better get along! I'm sure that all the flurry of too many boys in the hen house was cutting down on egg production. Meanwhile I'm worrying if I've given the girls "egg layer" feed too early. Did I cause them to have premature puberty? And what happens to roosters who also eat egg layer? Could feed meant for hens possibly have a subduing factor on roosters? We wish!
Secretly, I wonder what we are going to do with all these eggs when the girls hit their stride and get into full-steam-ahead production.
"I'll make noodles," says Mom.
"We'll be eating lots of omelets," said my sister
"I'll give them as hostess gifts, housewarming gifts, so-glad-you-came-by gifts," I chimed in. "Why, I even gave a dozen lovely robins-egg-blue eggs to Aunt Frieda for Christmas, tied up with a huge red bow."
Yesterday Cousin Becky invited us to a barbecue. Guess what I took along? "Eggs!" exclaimed Becky, " Are they every color of the rainbow? Maybe I'll take them to school for 'show and tell.'"
Even though I have to trudge out into the cold early morning air to care for my hens and swap water containers in cold weather to keep everything from freezing, the eggs and I are indeed enjoying another day in the country. (Got 16 eggs today from 16 hens! I'll have to give the girls a bonus!)
