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Sniff. Our last baby is now a hen. Marianne laid her first egg on Tuesday. Rather awkwardly. I have a feeling she may have dropped it while she was roosting. It was in such a strange place in the coop. If so, that must have been quite a shock for her!
All week, she’s been in and out of the coop, kicking the shavings around and making little nests. She’s also been rather noisy. Hopefully, now that she’s laying, she’ll calm down a bit. She’s lucky, too. If she hadn’t started laying, we were considering chopping her head off. Basque hens are “dual purpose” – you can raise them for eggs or for meat. At six months, she’d be awfully tasty. However, she’s a layer now. Hurrah!
I happen to know good things come in small packages. Talent abounds in small things. Small things can go wherever they set their minds too
Spoken from experience!
Nice to see she gets to keep her head.
When I was growing up my parents raised rabbits. We used to add to the stew pot those female rabbits that weren’t very good at mothering. I remember one of the best rabbit mothers we had was named ‘Big Mama’. There’s no telling how many babies she produced in her lifetime and she cared well for them all. As a kid we knew better than to name any of the farm animals until we knew exactly where they fell into the hierarchy – food or producer. Sometimes you couldn’t help but name a few. 
We weren’t going to name these two, but they were just so cute, and Ginger and Marianne were perfect names for them. However, their names won’t stop them from becoming soup chickens when they stop laying. I won’t be one of those crazy city chicken owners who “retire” their backyard brood on a farm somewhere. The girls have given us so much, the least we can do is give them a decent end when the time comes. And eat them.
Way to go, Marianne!!! I cannot WAIT for our girls to start laying. There’s been so much drama, sometimes I forget that’s sort of the whole point of having them.
It’s pretty egg-citing. (oh boo, I know, I just couldn’t resist!)