First Duck Egg and More.... 2022

One of our ducks laid her first egg this morning.  Found it in their pen. All dirty, but they didn't step on it! I took a photo of it along side the hen eggs that we gathered today.  The duck egg, at this point, is about the same size as the hen eggs but much lighter off-white with some gray blotches on it.  Not sure if they will always be that way, kind of two tone, or if the eggs will gradually become one tone. 

The pullets are being integrated with the hens this week.  They are still sleeping in their own areas, but we hope to push them all into the large pen in a few more days and start encouraging them to "get along."  I was able to get photos of them all, with the exception of our mature Black Copper Maran who was in the nesting box and I didn't want to distract her. 

Tiny the Micro Pullet Black Copper Marans

 We now have 10 chickens.  Four laying hens, four pullets that are 12 weeks old today, and two bantams that are about 16 weeks old that we picked up from a farm in Salem area.  It was thought that the bantams might be small enough to bond with our tiny "Tiny" Black Cooper Marans. Even the bantams are three times larger than the tiny one. I tried to get some photos of them as we attempt to integrate all ten together. The lighting wasn't very good and they were all very quick on their feet. I took Tiny out and did her photo shoot alone.  You can tell that she is not much larger than the palm of my hand. Considering that the 12 week old pullets are almost the same size as the hens, she obviously is never going to catch up. 

Here are some photos of Tiny and the Pullets from a month ago, and she really has not grown much in the past month.