Chicken Diaries - Goodbye Spot and our first egg!

I haven't writtten in a while, but on the 27 May we disposed of Spot. Poor Spotty had many of her feathers pulled out of the back of her neck from when Spot had managed to corner her for mating (and she is still only a baby so she's not fertile nor ready for fertilization). He tore her comb and now it has an ugly scab on it.

The kids were informed that Spot would no longer be there on the Friday when they got home from school, and so they said goodbye in the morning. Later that morning I had to hold my pet down whilst my mum did the deed and she did all the plucking and cleaning for me. Now I know how to do it if I had to do it again.

We ate him that night and his meat was tough! I was told later that you need to leave the meat for 3 days before you eat it, or it will be tough.

Spotty has grown a lot, and is now the second heaviest chicken! Last Monday I weighed them.

Bubbles is the number 2 chicken of the flock, and I think she's stopped growing. She was 1287g last week and this week is 1282g. The previous week she was 1280g.

I think Cacciatore has stopped growing. She has been this weight for a few weeks now, give or take 10g. She is the smallest of the chickens yet she is the alpha hen!

Mary finally cracked the 2kg mark! Last week she was 1902g, and the week before she was  1855g. With Spot gone, Mary has become the number 3 hen of the flock.

I'm not sure if this is accurate. Last week Snowy weighed 1530g. I will have to do weekly weighs to make sure she's ok. Snowy is at the bottom of the pecking order.

Look at all the feathers missing off poor Spotty's neck! They are growing back, but she still looks like the most juvenile hen here, despite being a good weight. Last week she was 1675g, and the week before she was 1450g. She may also be going through a teenage moult, but she is eating well.

Today I went outside to clean the coop and I found an egg!

I was very excited and made everyone else come out and look. You can see the nesting boxes in the background there (amongst all the poop) and I had blocked them off because the youngest pullets were in there sleeping and pooping. Now I've taken the boxes and soup pot out and put a dummy egg in one in the hope they will lay inside the nesting boxes.

It's a tiny egg!

We made pancakes out of the tiny egg, and the yolk was very pale. The shell wasn't too thin, it seemed ok. I'm wondering who laid the egg - I suspect it was Cacciatore, but it could have been Bubbles! Both of them seem to have matured and reached maximum weight (so they must be bantams!). Now I have to go find some shell grit to give them so my eggs will have nice strong shells and nobody gets osteoporosis!