It isn’t really a miracle, of course. But when you finally spot a fresh egg in the coop for the first time in six months, it certainly feels like one.
Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, hatched in January 2013, which makes them over six years old. At least one expert whose work I’ve consulted says hens generally stop laying, on a regular basis anyway, at about six years of age, although they may continue to produce eggs sporadically after that.
So we would have been disappointed, but not surprised, if Nellie and Hope had called it quits in the laying department. In fact, there’s some reason to believe Hope hasn’t laid since last spring. The final egg of 2018 — presumably, Nellie’s — made its appearance in September, with nary a sighting since then.
Until this morning.
It’s usually an exaggeration when people say something startled them so much they did a double take, but I did just that when I lifted my “poop bucket” into the coop at dawn, so I could clean things up. I’ve grown so accustomed to finding nothing but waste among the pine shavings on the coop floor that I came within an inch or two of depositing the bucket right on top of . . . an egg!
I'm not getting my hopes up too much. It probably will be a slow year for eggs, what with the age of our two hens. But as today's little "miracle" made clear, at least one of "the girls" hasn’t given up just yet.
Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, hatched in January 2013, which makes them over six years old. At least one expert whose work I’ve consulted says hens generally stop laying, on a regular basis anyway, at about six years of age, although they may continue to produce eggs sporadically after that.
So we would have been disappointed, but not surprised, if Nellie and Hope had called it quits in the laying department. In fact, there’s some reason to believe Hope hasn’t laid since last spring. The final egg of 2018 — presumably, Nellie’s — made its appearance in September, with nary a sighting since then.
Until this morning.
It’s usually an exaggeration when people say something startled them so much they did a double take, but I did just that when I lifted my “poop bucket” into the coop at dawn, so I could clean things up. I’ve grown so accustomed to finding nothing but waste among the pine shavings on the coop floor that I came within an inch or two of depositing the bucket right on top of . . . an egg!
I'm not getting my hopes up too much. It probably will be a slow year for eggs, what with the age of our two hens. But as today's little "miracle" made clear, at least one of "the girls" hasn’t given up just yet.
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