Eggs!

We thought for sure that we'd have to wait until the days got longer in February for eggs, since the girls hadn't produced by mid October. But then last week Ruby started to make a lot of noise. She looked fatter, and her comb was redder and larger than before. Desi was also looking a lot more grown up.

I didn't think anything of it until Alex texted me this picture on Tuesday:

Between Tuesday and Saturday, Ruby laid 4 eggs! It's so exciting. We tried the eggs for breakfast on Friday, and they are absolutely the tastiest eggs I've ever eaten. The shells were nice and hard and the yolks were deep yellow, almost orange. This is a good sign, meaning the girls are getting enough of the right nutrients in their diets.

I watched Ruby yesterday to see how she acted before laying. She squawked a bit, ran into the coop, stayed only a short while, came back out to scratch for a bit, and repeated that cycle for most of the morning. Finally, she stayed in the coop for about 25 minutes. When she came out, she looked a lot littler, so I ran outside and found a warm egg waiting in the laying box.

The shells go either in with the worm compost (they like the calcium) or into the black plastic yard waste compost bin. We really need to amp up our soil production for next growing season, so food scraps feel like gold.