Our first egg!

Today one of chickens laid her first egg, a nice little brown specimen, very clean and perfect looking. I'm not sure which chicken laid it, but this morning I did this "thing" that I learned on the Portland Backyard Chicken group where you sort of tap their backs and they hunker down if they're going to start laying eggs soon. Dolly and Abigail both hunkered down (Martha didn't), so I think it was one of them. Apparently this "hunkering" has to do with showing the proper respect towards a rooster.

We went to the Country Fair this weekend and it sounds like the chickens had a wild time in our absence. They wandered into our neighbor's yard for the first time ever (of course it had to be the neighbor who isn't crazy about chickens) and then they were let loose for several hours by a friend of one of the neighbor girls. Their mom didn't know the chickens had been let out until about 11:00 p.m. She came over here to search for them and couldn't find them anywhere - apparently she even went under the porch with a flashlight and drove around the neighborhood looking for them. She didn't sleep too well that night (and neither would I have if I had known!) but the chickens were found safe and sound in the garage the next morning. I think, given the number of poops I found, that they had slept under the wisteria vine on the deck. It's a very secure spot where they're almost invisible. Also, I should note that the little girls spread chicken feed all over the yard to try to lure them back to the coop. So now the yard is a patchwork of dead grass and chicken feed. I think we should just start over with it in the fall.

Tonight I worked on putting together a permanent pen for the girls to use when we're out of town, so I don't to ask a neighbor to let them out and round them up every evening. I have sort of a quasi-run now, but it's not very pretty and it still needs a lot of work.

By the way, our camera got lost at the Country Fair, so I don't have a photo of the Egg. I'm posting a photo of a similar (Portland, July) egg instead.

(And I'll post about the County Fair soon too).