Kate DeAraugo lays an egg

One of the chooks that we got last week has started laying.

Actually there may be more than one laying, but we're only getting one egg a day at the moment. I checked on them on Thursday morning and one of them was in the nest, picking up bits of straw and dropping them on her back. That's always a sure sign that they're about to lay.

When I got yesterday's egg out of the nest I decided to weigh it. Remember a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned one of our previous chooks layed a 100g egg. This one was 30g.

At least she's trying though, and they will get bigger.

We've also started letting them out of the pen for a little while each evening, so they can have a scratch around in the yard. We're going to have to clip their wings soon, as it won't be long before they start going over the fence.

If you only clip one side, every time they try to fly, and you'd be surprised how far a chook can fly, they end up going in circles. Once they get older they'll get used to staying in the yard and won't be as much of a problem. At the moment we're still having to round them up when they go to bed, but soon they'll just put themselves to bed when it starts to get dark.

Edit: 19/12/06
If you're visiting from the Young Divas forum, welcome.
You might like to check out a couple of other entries, here and here, that will put the above into more perspective.