We've got one!

It has arrived! Our first egg!

So smooth, so perfect.  And so small! It's about half the size of a normal supermarket large egg - but the excitement!  No other egg could surely have induced such excitement.

I checked the nesting box and de-pooped it mid-morning.  It rained all day and I spent the majority of the time mooching round in the house feeling below par (possible virus, I think).

This afternoon, at teatime I noticed both Delia and Butterscotch had somehow got out of their enclosure and were wandering in a perplexed fashion around the playtower... so I raced down the garden assuming one of the children hadn't shut the electric gate properly again (like the last time Delia had a little adventure around the garden).  But no, gate shut, no evidence of escape route - they must have flown out.  Well, it has been a little gusty at times today, perhaps they were wind assisted?  Or am I simply putting off the inevitable necessary wing clipping?

So, the miscreants were duly escorted back in without too much fuss and bother - Butterscotch easily picked up and carried in, Delia had to be channelled between the rabbit fence and the electric fence again.  I decided that a little poo picking from the grass would be a good idea so that I could keep an eye on them for 10 minutes or so...they must have been exhausted by their adventure as within 5 minutes they were all huddled up preening together with Butterscotch in the middle, head under wing, catching 40 winks!

I lifted the hen house lid to check if a poo pick was necessary in there - and there it was, in the nesting box!!! Bold as brass.

So I have absolutely no idea when it was laid - sometime between 10.30am and 5.30pm... nor which hen laid it, as it is a perfect creamy colour, and we don't technically have any hens which should lay creamy coloured eggs!  So unless the shell colouring system of the responsible lady hasn't switched on yet.  It is so small, but seems so heavy.  I understand from my online investigations that it may not have a yolk in it, so we will see at breakfast in the morning.

Looking at the chickens, if we go for 'readiness to lay' indicators - darkening and enlarging of comb and wattles; propensity to squat submissively when I try to pick them up - we have 3 possible candidates: Butterscotch, Delia (though she definitely doesn't squat - nothing submissive about her! But she does have the reddest comb and largest wattles...though she is supposed to lay pure white eggs, not cream), or perhaps Margot (though she should lay very dark brown freckled eggs...).

My money's on Butterscotch.  Perhaps her escaping act was a victory lap?

Such clever animals!