Pip!

Quite a few things have happened. . .

I went back to Common Ground and got 6 new eggs. I put 3 under Lemon and 3 in my incubator, the one blue egg in my incubator was not fertile and two brown eggs underneath Lemon were discarded as well, leaving 2 eggs with Lemon (including an older EE egg which I call "EE 1" and the new Easter Egger egg, "Blue Egg 2") and two brown eggs in my bator.

The last 2 blue eggs together (Lemon's taking a break outside).

EE 1 is older than the rest of the Common Ground eggs by a week and today is day 21 for "it". And the egg has started pipping though the shell and is chirping!

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Yesterday when I candled/checked on the egg and put it to my ear, I could hear tapping. Surprised, I tapped back, and the chick inside replied by tapping. After candling I also found out that it had already pipped internally! The chick had started getting to work and in a few hours later the chick started chirping inside the egg. 

This morning around 7:30 a.m., I saw the external pip for the first time.

Day 20- chick has already internally pipped and is chirping and pecking its way out of the egg 

Day 21 (around 7:30 a.m.)- The chick has pipped externally!

Lemon's Double Yolker

I found a ginormous egg while checking the coop's nesting box. I'm assuming it belongs to Lemon because she lays the largest eggs. It was almost double the size of a normal egg (which is the size of Lime's egg), and loomed in size when I held in in my hands. It reminded me of the time when my old hen, Pine would lay me giant double yolk eggs.

Here's a short story about Pine laying a double yolk egg:

One day, around 2011 or 2012 back in my old house, Pine was spotted my mom without the rest of the flock. Since she was the lead hen, my mom got a bit worried and followed her as she hobbled all over the yard. She noticed that Pine's posture was strange. Pine was a bit hunched over with a drooping butt, and she walked slowly to each destination. It took Pine nearly 30 minutes, until finally, she stopped to rest at a big pine tree in the front yard yard. Out plopped a fresh new egg, and as my mom neared to collect it, she found that it was very big indeed! No wonder it took so long for Pine to push out that extra, extra large egg! Which mush have hurt considering the size of it. When my mom cracked open the egg, we found that it was a double yolker (an egg containing two yolks). Pine, our Easter Egger hen was the only hen of our 6-hen flock that would lay these ginormous eggs. She didn't lay them too frequently, yet they weren't rare. My only other hen that would give me an occasional double yolker was Sugar, my sweet sweet Red Star (click here to read her story). Though, even Sugar's double yolk eggs were not as big in comparison to Pine's.

Anyways. . .back from the past to current time. . .

Here's a comparison of each flock member's egg. Charcoal has the most petite and adorable chubby egg of them all.

I eagerly brought the egg inside to reveal what was inside.

Was it going to be a double shelled egg?

Or perhaps a triple yolk?

Eh, the first one maybe, the second. . .not so likely.

When I cracked the egg using the edge of my bowl, I saw that it was not a double shelled egg. There was rich yellowish yolk inside, already starting to ooze out now that I had disturbed the membrane. I cracked the other side and let the yolk drop down to my bowl. And there it revealed itself to be. . .a double yolk!

Egg Ritual

Baa-AH! au-au-a-a-bwua-AH! au-au-a-a--ba-AHH!!" The sound of Mellow's histerical bleating could even be heard through the window.

Who knew such a little chicken could bauwk as hard as she did?

Here's a recording of Mellow's noisy "buaa-AH's!"


Soon, the little white heads of Lime and Lemon popped out of the doghouse in confusion. Not knowing what to do, they added in soft cluckings of their concern for their dear little flock member Mellow.
 I noticed that Spice was sitting in on of the nesting boxes. Mellow stopped her loud bauw-AH-kings and ran back into her little hideout: the doghouse as soon as I arrived. Apparently, it was another call for attention on her newly laid egg; I spied a small light brown egg nested among the pine needle bedding (under Spice).

For some reason all the girls like the nesting box on the top left corner, they lay their eggs there everyday. Once in a while though, I do find eggs on the bottom box too. Another acceptable place to lay eggs is the doghouse. The chickens love to hang out there all day. I took a peak today on the other side of the chicken enclosure where the doghouse was positioned. Here's what I saw when I looked inside the doghouse:

Lemon stands up and stretches after laying her egg.

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Now back to Spice. . . 

Spice was well settled in the favorite nesting box among the chickens. I could tell that she would soon lay an egg as she started panting heavily.

Spice prepares to lay her egg.

Still wet, her egg pops out!

Soon after the egg was laid, Spice hopped out of the nesting box, and Lime who had been observing for a a while, decided to hop in.

Settling in. . .

Quite the comical expression. Doesn't lil' Lime look so motherly for a change?

After a LONG time, Lime finally jumped back out, fluffed her feathers, and headed back to the doghouse. Well, I guess that's all the egg laying they will do today!

New Egger! (continuation of Idle Holi-days)

These past days, I've been finding more eggs than usual. . .

The only eggs used to be the tan-ish, tinted, small Mellow eggs.

However, now two chickens also joined the production line, accompanying lonely little Mellow.
First up was the mysterious white egg that appeared on the coop floor a bit cracked and caked with a layer of poop on the 20th of December. The next time a white egg was spotted was on the wet ground of the chicken enclosure.

I've been finding white eggs, especially on the ground.

Who was laying these mysterious white eggs?

Was it Spice?

No, she still hadn't squatted

Charcoal?

Most likely not, her comb was still small and petite sized.

Lime?

A few days ago when I had bent down to pet her, she had squatted for me. . . a possibility, but still there was a better answer.

. . . I was convinced that Lemon had laid the egg

Added to the suspicion were the giant red comb and wattles that Lemon carried. She had the biggest in the coop, Lemon also squatted for me a couple of times.

Finally it was unraveled, and I spotted Lemon one day in the nesting box. She stayed in there for a few minutes and then plopped off the box, there was no egg. Disappointed I walked away from the window. When I returned, a fresh white egg, just beaming lay on the ground. 

So, Lemon was the new egg layer.

Comparison of Mellow's egg (left) and Lemon's second egg (right). Lemon's bright white egg isn't very big, but slowly they will exceed Mellow's.

But a few days later, another egg was found. It was white as expected with a few blood stains. The only possibility was Lime, as she was the only other pullets who would squat for me.

Lemon caught being in the nesting box.

A desolate white egg was the result!

Mellow's First Egg!

Today, after a few days of knowing that Mellow had reached maturity for laying eggs (she squatted down for me one day when I extended my arm), Mellow finally delivered her first egg! The egg was found underneath the roost, and it didn't crack because I just replaced the bedding. It was small as expected from a bantam pullet and was pale brown, or as some say, a tinted color. I also spotted a few blood stains on the pointed end of the egg, which were probably from her first struggle pushing the egg out.

Mellow's first egg was small with two blood stains.

Here's one of the stains, it looks a bit like brown egg color pigment that was wiped off.