Today turned out to be the day I thought would never come. We’ve been the proud owners of 5 silkie hens since the middle of September. At that time they were about 4 months old and I read that silkies start laying around 7-8 months old. With it being winter I thought that the gals may wait until spring to start giving their little gifts.
Tonight my husband went out to make sure they had all gone up into their super safe sleeping quarters. When he came back in the house, he walked over to me and told me to hold out my hand. I felt a cool, oval shape in my palm and I knew right away what it was. Let’s just say that my first egg was quite rewarding! I am so thrilled.
My daughter is excited, too!
Our darling egg is on the left next to one of our store-bought cage-free, organic eggs. Since silkies are bantams, which means that they’re smaller than normal chickens, they also lay smaller eggs. By the looks of it, they are about half the size. An easy conversion for baking and recipes! Having eaten fresh eggs from the family that gave us our silkies, I know that it will taste so fresh and full of flavor.
I feed our hens organic crumble food, in addition to all of their time out roaming in the backyard eating bugs, seeds and weeds (and their occasional favorite organic tomato from one of our tomato plants.)
I saw some cute bumper stickers from www.backyardchickens.com that say, “My pet makes me breakfast.” And now I can say the same!
Bountiful Backyard 