A Family of Injuries
Those of you who know me in real life — which, let’s face it, is probably all of you cause who else would read my chicken blog besides friends and family? 
— and follow me on Facebook, know that The S.O. injured himself while mountain biking last week. A week before that, we were horribly irresponsible and let The Dog run around on a bunch of jagged rocks at the lake. The rocks cut up his pads so bad he limped and needed to wear the Cone of Shame for a week. Just a few days ago, I managed to cut my hand pretty bad on a broken piece of glass.
Injury of the Week
The chickens are not immune to our bad luck. We’re not sure how it happened, but Wanda injured her foot at some point during the last week. Possibly she jumped off something a little too high, or maybe pinched her toe–I don’t know. What I do know is that one of her toes swelled and twisted a bit so that it doesn’t lie flat on the ground.
She’s still laying an egg every day, walks around ok and jumps up and down from her night perch, but leaving it alone has only increased the swelling and she has a bit of a limp.
I researched the forums on www.BackyardChickens.com to see what other people do with an injured, possibly infected, chicken foot (it’s a pretty common ailment). Many people suggest antibiotics, but I don’t want to go there if I can avoid it.
Cross-species First Aid Kit
After sorting through the various advice, and figuring our family has further injuries in our future, I took a trip to the local drugstore with the specific goal of only purchasing first aid supplies safe to use on ALL members of the family.
Yes, that’s right. I am putting together an all-purpose, cross-species, basic first aid kit.
Here’s what I have so far:
- Aspirin (just need to be careful about correct dosage for our various species and weights.)
- Hydrogen Peroxide
- Neosporin (MUST be original formula. The ‘with Pain Reliever’ version is lethal to chickens. Otherwise it’s fine to use on all members of our family–human, dog, chicken, cat–but should be wrapped well when used on dogs. It’s not healthy for a dog to ingest a lot of neosporin.)
- Cotton Balls
- Bandages (I got the kind that’s easy to cut to fit dog-sized paws, chicken-sized toes, and human-sized shins.)
- Bandage Tape
- VetWrap (self-stick)
- VetBond (super-glue meant to replace the need for stitches. Regular super-glue is toxic when it enters the human bloodstream. A prescription is needed to obtain medical grade super-glue for humans. VetBond has, from what I’ve researched online, the same formula as super-glue for humans, but because it’s for ‘animals’, you don’t need a prescription. Well, humans are animals too, especially when it means saving ourselves a trip to the emergency room. Just be super careful about really cleaning out the wound before sealing it over.)
- Latex Gloves (I got a nice big box of gloves. It makes me feel less when squeamish dealing with various family members blood and other liquids, plus, it’s just more sanitary.)
I’m sure I will add to the above list over time, but it’s a good enough start for now.
One specialty item I added just for Wanda’s toe was a razor blade. I will need to cut into her foot soon and take out the infection.
Stay tuned …
Filed under: The Experiment
Wanda laid a double-yoke egg and we have pictures.
This happened in February 2009, but we were in the middle of packing up and moving, so I didn’t get a chance to put this post together until now …
We figured it was a double-yolk egg as soon as I pulled it from the nest –this egg is humongous. You can even see the seam in the shell where the two eggs fused together.
The S.O. wanted to keep the two yolks intact, so we decided to boil the egg. The shell cracked when we boiled it, but otherwise stayed intact:
Wanda’s eggshells are usually the lightest in color, though still brown. Flo lays speckled brown eggs and Frida lays solid brown eggs. This particular egg from Wanda was extra light, almost white. Also, we knew that since the shell cracked while boiling, it was thin to begin with.
But hey, her egg laying apparatus was just getting started. I guess it needed to work out the kinks.
Warming Up
It’s usually the young chickens who lay double yolk eggs, which was the case with Wanda. When we got our first double-yoke egg from her she had been laying for less than a month.
You are also more likely to have chickens lay double yolk eggs when they are about to stop laying eggs (ie, getting too old for it). I guess it’s a warming up and cooling down thing.
Not sure if breed makes a difference, but neither Frida nor Flo have laid any weird eggs (they are both Rhode Island Reds), just Wanda (she’s a New Hampshire Red).
The Big Reveal
The S.O. peeled the egg and it looked like this:
A perfectly preserved double-yoke egg.
I’m sure this egg was perfectly safe, but I did not partake. Of course, none of that ‘needed to work out the kinks’ stopped my S.O. from eating the entire thing.
He said I missed out on a super-delicious egg.
Still Warming Up
Wanda laid two more double-yoke eggs before her system finally figured out how to consistenly lay a single-yolk egg with a strong shell.
I did taste one of those later double-yolks. I didn’t notice any real difference between them and the normal single-yolk eggs, except that, of course, it was a lot more egg to eat!
I took the dog for a walk today and ran into our next door neighbor walking his own dog. We’d given this neighbor 4 eggs last week. I asked if he’d tried them yet.
He said not only did he try them, but they were SO delicious that he went to the local feed store to see how much chicken feed costs; he’s now seriously considering getting a couple of laying chickens for his own backyard!
He said he was amazed at how much better my backyard eggs tasted than from anything he’d bought recently from the grocery store.
I guess we officially have our first convert. We are now backyard-chicken missionaries
As promised, here are pics and notes from the first taste test (with the 2nd egg):
Here’s a reference for how our first 2 eggs stack up against the grocery store eggs:
Here’s a side profile:
Here is my S.O. cooking a store bought egg alongside ours (our egg is the smaller, more colorful one):
The final product:
My S.O. decided that in order for it to be a purist egg-taste-test he should barely cook the eggs. I did not want to eat a runny egg, regardless of what kind of chicken laid it. I decided to wait for the chickens to lay another egg that I could then scramble (which happened to be the very next day).
Our chickens’ eggs are more deeply colored, the yolk stands upright in the pan when first cracked –think jello-like — and the white of the egg stays nice and tight around the yoke as it cooks. Basically, all parts of our eggs were more defined, firmer, rounder, and more colorful than the store eggs.
We both decided that our backyard chicken eggs taste a bit leaner than the store bought eggs; they also had an almost grassy aftertaste. Very fresh tasting. Success!
It should be noted that the egg we used in the taste test is not your normal grocery store egg (white egg from a battery hen caged inside all day and probably debeaked, etc.).
The store-bought egg we used in the taste test is from a pastured hen, that is, a chicken who is supposed to be able to graze on pasture for a certain amount of the day. They cost major money ($2.50 for 6 eggs).
These grocery-store, pastured eggs are some of the best eggs we’ve ever eaten, so, for our backyard eggs to come out about even on taste, and even better on color and freshness, and even better on price (practically free!), is pretty astounding.
As I promised in my last post announcing our first egg, I’ve included some close-ups of our egg stacked up against a brown egg from the grocery store.
Our egg is the smaller, speckled one in the pictures. We aren’t sure which chicken laid the first egg. They all seemed pretty proud of it.
As Wanda, Frida and Flow get older, they’ll lay bigger and bigger eggs until the size matches the grocery store one. Click on any image to enlarge.
This picture below shows the little bit of cracked shell at the tip of the egg. This is what made me realize it was a real egg and not some trick my S.O. was playing on me.
Our First Egg
I woke up yesterday morning, started the coffee and went to let the chickens out of their coop. When I opened up the coop door my first thought was, “My Significant Other is playing a trick on me!” This is what I saw:
I figured my S.O. placed a fake egg in the coop when he put the chickens away the night before. Then I picked it up, figured out it was real, put it carefully back down where I found it (see picture), and started yelling for my S.O. to come outside.
He came running — probably thought the tree was on fire with how excited I sounded
He looked at the egg. I looked at the egg. We looked at each other. He looked at the egg again. I looked at the egg again. He looked at the chickens. I looked at The Dog …
This back and forth went on for about a minute.
Then he said, “You sure that’s a real egg?”
I started laughing.
Why did I think it was a trick?
Fog
The weather has been fog, fog, and more fog, here in Sacramento for the last month. Chickens are supposed to require 12-14 hours of daylight in order to lay eggs. I figured we were getting less than that with the fog.
Most people combat too little daylight by installing a regular light bulb in their chicken coop (it works the same as daylight for some reason, even if it’s just a 40 watt bulb). We had not yet set up a light bulb in the coop — hence thinking the chickens were not getting enough light to lay eggs.
No Weird Eggs
The first eggs chickens lay do not usually come out correctly. That is, they tend to be weirdly shaped, maybe even shell-less. According to what I’ve read about other peoples’ experiences. This egg looked so … well, so much like a regular egg, I thought it could not possibly have come from our just-matured chickens.
Insecurity
And finally, deep down, my S.O. and I thought we couldn’t possibly be raising the chickens correctly. Even though I read all the books in preparation, most science experiments have a good chance of failure, especially the first time around, and I had figured from the beginning that’s what would happen here. I guess I underestimated how easy it really is to raise chickens for eggs, even for a newbie like me.
Now What?
We decided we won’t eat the first egg. It might look fine on the outside, but still might be a bit weird on the inside.
Instead, I plan on blowing out the insides and keeping it as a shrine 
An Egg and The Dog
This egg came out so nicely (I’ll post additional pictures of the egg tomorrow), I have a suspicion that it can’t possibly be the first one. That means the chickens may have laid a few eggs around the backyard … and The Dog may have eaten them.
This is purely speculation, The Dog may still be innocent of any wrong-doing. I will try to withhold judgment until I’ve caught him in the act. In the meantime, the S.O. and I plan to buy a fake egg from a nearby magic store to put in the coop nest.
It’s Magic
Chickens like to lay eggs where other chickens have already laid eggs. I don’t know why, I just know from the various chicken books that this is part of what it means to be a chicken (eventually I’ll get around to posting a list of my book resources so that you’re not just taking me at my word).
Hopefully Wanda, Frida and Flo will get the idea and lay their eggs only inside the nest from now on.
Tomorrow
Check back soon for a full glamour shot spread of pictures featuring our first egg!
