Keeping Chickens

Which Came First, The Chicken Or The Egg..?

No, this isn’t some ‘heavy’ philosophical question you’ll be pleased to know! If you want a ‘brainiac’ type answer though, you can always check this reply out.

We’ve been keeping chickens now for a little over a week and when we got our Isa Browns - or Isa Warrens, we got them as ‘point of lay’ hens.

The keeping chicken books reckon that point of lay chickens are usually about 20 weeks old.

Ours became our back garden chickens at 18 weeks, so they’re a little younger. The chicken breeder reckoned they’d be laying eggs by about 22 weeks.

Every morning our four year old rushes off down the garden in his pajamas and wellies to let the chickens out.

Fortunately the time has gotten a little later the week has gone on, as he was so excited about doing it the first morning we had the chickens, that he came into us at 4:30am wanting to go see them!

He lets the chickens out with a cheerful ‘morning girls’ and laughs as they run down from their ‘bedroom’ into their run area.

His next job is to check the nest box for any eggs. Whilst we accept this is a futile ‘look’ on his behalf, it’s worth getting him into the routine; ’cause come winter I would prefer him to me to be scurrying off down the garden in the early morning to me…

Anyhow, he lifts the nesting box lid and usually shout, ‘no eggs today’ Mum / Dad, delete as appropriate - usually Mum as I’m not much of a morning person! 

I’m looking forward to hear him shouting, ‘there’s eggs, there’s eggs..!’. But I think it may be a couple of weeks off yet before we hear this happy shout!

The thought of him carrying the eggs back to the house when they finally start laying is still a little worrying. Whether they’d actually make it back to us without being dropped is something we’re yet to find out.

So the answer to the question (for us at least) of; what came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s most defintely the chicken!