Eggs

The chickens are one by one coming on to lay.  The young girls that we bought from the last Smallholders Sale are giving us tiny eggs that day by day, week by week are getting larger and larger and are now, mostly, at the size we can begin to sell.

It's been no hardship not being able to sell all the eggs up to now, we have enjoyed so many wonderful meals with these small, but perfectly formed wonders.

They all took to eating corn pretty quickly, I give it to them in the afternoon to make sure they get their fill of Layers Pellets in the morning.  They need Layers for the nutrition they contain to support their little bodies through the energy involved in laying eggs.  But it is the corn, and the greens that they find naturally in their foraging through the grass for tasty titbits of weeds and bugs that give the eggs the wonderful almost orange coloured yolks.

So many sizes and shapes, this picture shows one of Lofty's eggs (she's a mature Light Sussex) a Hyline egg and a Lavender Pekin Bantam egg.

I could wax lyrical about eggs for ages, I love the feel of them, the look of them, the taste of them in the many things you can make with them,.  What other food compliments so many others, whether it be winter or summer, whether you are wanting a snack or a full and filling meal.

The first egg we found after adopting our initial rescue birds back in May 2009 was a joy.  It never diminishes that thrill of opening the henhouse and seeing the eggs nestling in the straw, sometimes still warm and with that fresh wet tinge of the bloom that sets the colour.

Some eggs we keep forever, this was the first egg laid by one of our Welsummers and is still in it's little egg cup to this day.  (Don't worry they don't smell, if you never crack them the contents simply disappear and the egg is just a shell surrounding air - so perfect!)

Putting all your eggs in one basket could be said to be risky ....... but I love it.

Sue xx