Would You Like Eggs With That?

I think I now understand why eggs became a part of the traditional American breakfast. Now that we have chickens and they have matured enough to begin laying, not a day has gone by that there hasn't been at least one egg in the nesting boxes. We've been getting eggs for about a month now and “the girls” have been producing 4-5 eggs per day for the last week. I expect it won't be long before we'll be getting a half dozen each day, one from each hen.

One of our first eggs.

The eggs are beginning to pile up, despite making my own spätzle (a type of eggy German pasta), fried egg sandwiches, omelets, quiche, fried eggs on potato pancakes (I had to use up the potatoes from the garden) and even grilled cheese sandwiches with an egg on the side. What I'm trying to say is that if you have chickens, even just a few, you will quickly be overwhelmed by eggs. The only solution is to eat them, sell them or both.

A couple of double-yolkers.  Not pictured, the green beans from the garden.

I don't know about you, but most of my ancestors were farmers. Those that had enough land to appear in the agricultural census left us records of how many chickens they had and how many dozen eggs they produced in the year. Those that had less land probably still had chickens because they are easy to raise (after the initial setup) and eat garden scraps. Now when I have watermelon rinds, grapes with a couple of bug holes or split tomatoes that I don't have time to do anything with I give them to the girls and they are happy to convert them into fresh eggs. Because of this, I would be surprised if any of my ancestors not living in the city didn't have at least a few chickens. And did I mention that when you have chickens you get eggs? And when you have eggs, you have breakfast. . . and lunch. . . and dinner.