An Odd Egg and Courgette Cake

We had our first strange egg laid yesterday. Not bad going in 12 weeks between the three girls (over 250 eggs!). I have had a good Google around and found some information about shell-less eggs from this website. These can be caused by a number of reasons, the main ones being lack of calcium in the diet, or a sudden shock leading to a glitch in the shell forming process. I gave the girls oyster shell grit as usual and added Life Guard tonic to their water. Today we have had three perfect eggs with strong shells, so I am hoping this is a one off.

So what are we doing with these scrumptious eggs? Below is a picture of the Chocolate Courgette Cake (with Chocolate Butter Cream filling) that used up 3 eggs. It was really tasty and an excellent way to use some of the many courgettes we have at the moment. I will post the recipe later as a separate page if anyone wants to have a go... We also made melt in the middle chocolate cookies to use up 1 egg.

And what have the girls been getting up to? 

We were out the other evening and back a little after the chooks bedtime; unfortunately the wind had blown the door to the run closed and they couldn't get to bed. We felt really awful, but we found two of them roosting on the roof of the run looking a bit put out. Omelette was hiding in the ivy bush at ground level. We very quickly got them tucked up into the coop so they could settle down for the night. Since then Custard has been climbing to new heights, standing on the run, and the recycling bin. These birds are not as dumb as people think! We will have to watch them closely in future; our fence is no higher than the run!

Below are a couple of pictures of them enjoying their shared dust bath next to the curry bush. They spend hours in this spot and the hole is getting quite deep. We secretly joke that they are tunnelling to get into next doors garden, where the grass is apparently greener!

And in this picture, Custard (Alpha-Chook) meets her "sister", Lauren was very interested in her and did make a grab for her floppy comb, but we told her to play nice (and moved her out of arms reach)... Just wait til she's walking girls...

Here is Custard posing for her close up. She is the only one that doesn't mind being handled too much, which is why all the pics are of her. Omelette and Bennie seem to get stressed at being handled still.

Custard with me, having a cuddle...

I'll include the egg stats next time, when we celebrate our 300th egg :-)

Our first egg-centenery... and a chicken update.

I'm please to say that we have had our 100th and 101st eggs laid for us by Team Chook. So what have we done with 101 eggs???

 This amounts to 2.73 eggs per day on average. The 33 eggs we sold has made us £8. Not enough to buy the next bag of feed for the girls, but we didn't get hens to make a profit from, although it would be nice to have loads more chickens in the garden and eggs to sell! The eggs have been eaten in cakes, on sandwiches, in omelettes, and boiled, scrambled and are delicious every time! I think I'm going to have a go at completely home made egg mayonnaise when we have our next surplus...


The girls have been enjoying their freedom with us still, although we have decided that they need to be confined to their own area of the garden in a few months time in a very big run rather than taking over the whole garden all day. This is because soon my 7 month old baby will be wanting to toddle around the garden and chicken poop is not good for her to play with, and I imagine the chickens may be a little scared of her. A couple of days ago her cry scared them so much they ran straight into the kitchen and weren't happy about being evicted!

Here are some more pictures of the girls...

All three ladies having a meeting in the corner of the garden.

Benni showing off her bald spot in the rain

Benni again looking a bit damp

Custard experiences the joy of a dust bath in the sun

Custard (Right) and Omelette sharing the same dust bath