- Good morning, guys.
It is a loud morning here at the homestead.
The chickens are going crazy.
So they're all squawking a lot.
There's Lav, and the rest are in the henhouse,
which is kinda weird in the morning.
Normally, they're out and about running around here.
So let's go over here and see what's going on.
I have a weird feeling,
just because I've never heard them be this loud.
See what's happening.
(chickens squawking)
Hey, girls.
Look at Red.
Look at Gucci.
Wait, what's...?
Oh-- oh!
Oh, there's an egg, there's an egg!
There's two, there's two!
We got our first eggs at the homestead.
Look at this beautiful egg, oh my God.
I cannot believe it actually happened.
It's only been 19 or 20 weeks,
and I think we all remember what it was like
to raise these chicks.
In fact, why don't we take a little trip back in time
and look at the journey?
(light flowy music)
- [Man] They're here, guys.
Oh my God, look.
Look at these guys, girls.
Oh, so cute.
- So, these two of your precious little ones.
- [Man] Oh my god.
- This one's a Rhode Island.
- [Man] That Buff is so cute.
- [Woman] Your Buff...
- [Man] What a cute little girl.
- [Woman] And then your Cream Legbar.
- [Man] Oh.
(sweet music continues)
- Like I said, it's been a day or two.
I'm slowly trying to train them
to make their way into the nesting box to lay.
So, let's pop this down, honestly I love this feature
of the coop, and would you look--
Oh, no no no!
Don't eat it, don't eat it.
So I'm gonna harvest these eggs right now.
So I'll say this: I put one of these in that spot
because I want them to--
(chicken clucks)
Hey.
What are you doing?
You getting excited?
(chicken clucks)
Okay, you're gonna be in there for a while.
So, what I am trying to do is train them
to actually lay in the nesting box.
We'll flip around the side and I'll show you
what's going on, but I would say half the time
they're not laying in the nesting box.
So there's a couple ways to do that.
Way number one is just like I just said.
Put the egg there, let them know it's safe...
(chicken clucks)
Number two is to put something like a golf ball there
or like a stone or something like that
just to make them know that this nesting box
is a safe place for them to lay,
because I'll be honest with you, if we come around here,
and you unhook this area, let's open it up,
they're just randomly laying in the henhouse.
And that's not been great.
So there'll just be a little hole
and then there'll be an egg just sitting right there.
So they're getting a little antsy right now.
Maybe they are starting to rev up for eggs round two
in the morning.
But I was raking through this bedding,
and I found eggs just randomly.
I don't want that.
I want the eggs to be in the nesting box.
In fact, these three I got today.
I should have four because I've already calculated
there are four laying hens.
Now it's up to you which ones they are,
but I think you have a clue with our Silver Laced Wyandotte
just making all that crazy noise and hanging out
in the nesting box.
I'm also noticing Rufio over here
is investigating the nesting box.
The only two I have not seen show any interest
in those boxes are our Orpingtons,
Lav right here and Butta, the Buff Orpington.
So if it's my guess, I would say it's Gucci and Silver,
our Wyandottes, our Cream Legbar Rufio,
as well as our Rhode Island Red, Lobster.
Something else I've noticed is that they've in general
become a little bit more likely to allow me to pick them up.
Lav here is just kinda chilling these days, which is nice.
I felt like I lost them in their teenage years,
and they're back in these mother hen phase of their life.
So there's a couple things that we have to change in here.
We're switching the bedding over, it's a mix
of pine shavings and industrial hemp.
I wanna move this more towards full industrial hemp,
but then the other thing that's the big change
is in the nesting box, we put some of these liners in,
which is basically like a stringy type of fiber.
They like long fibers.
They don't ideally probably want bedding in there,
they want something that they can kind of scratch around
and find a nice little depression
where they can sit on that egg,
and so we'll leave a link in the video description
for those, but let's pop in the actual coop
and talk about a couple other changes
now that these hens are starting to lay.
(smooth guitar music)
Go ahead, Lav.
Here in the coop, there's not a whole lot to change
except for the fact that we do have to change their feed.
We've been using a feed from a company called Grubbly's,
and it's the baby chick's feed
that does not have calcium in it,
it has a couple different things in.
But now that they're laying eggs,
the egg shell of course made up of mostly calcium,
I believe, at least.
So in the Coopworx feeder, it's not gonna look different,
but we've already swapped this feed out
to a laying style feed.
So in here, what does that mean?
That means that this little feed here
has a lot more calcium.
It's gonna be very important for the formation of eggs,
but while they are not laying, you actually don't want
to give them that feed.
That's why you've got this baby chick feed,
(chickens cluck)
and this larger layer feed.
They're a little excited, they probably need some more feed,
so why don't we grab a bag and toss it in?
So here we have the two types of feed.
Again, it's from a company called Grubbly Farms.
Not a sponsored thing or anything like that,
but to be honest with you, we would love to carry you
in the store, Grubbly, or work with you in some way,
'cause this feed has been really fantastic.
So you can see the Little Peck's Crumbles,
obviously for baby chicks, and then we have
the Fresh Peck's Pellets.
It's actually quite a different look to the feed.
It looks like there's a little more grain inside this feed.
I'm not quite sure the exact breakdown,
I could read it off for you.
Yeah, there's three percent minimum, four percent maximum
calcium by volume, which is not present on the back
of this one, which is exactly what I'm talking about.
The thing I love about the Coopworx feeder is,
this is a pretty significant bag of feed here.
We didn't even fill up halfway up the feeder here.
It just takes so much volume.
Now, I'm gonna do something that I probably shouldn't do,
but otherwise this is just a totally wasted bag.
I know two of my hens aren't laying yet, so I think
if I cut in a little of the Little Peck's,
it's not gonna do a lot of damage here,
and I wanna make sure that I use this bag
and don't put it to waste.
So if you take a look at this feed,
it's obviously much different.
It's a lot more fine-grained.
So I think that's the primary difference here.
And there's also almost no calcium in it, 0.60%.
I'll come in later, kinda mix that together,
won't be a big deal.
Now we gotta go inside and cook our very first egg.
So I have nine eggs collected guys,
and let me show you something that I didn't know about eggs.
I was in New Zealand, I was traveling,
I walked into a grocery store,
and I saw flat upon flat of eggs,
just stored right there, no refrigeration whatsoever.
I was really confused and I said, "How can you do that?
Aren't they gonna go bad?"
They said, "No, if you don't wash them, you can store them
out just like this for quite some time."
Which is exactly what I've been doing.
I wanna get a little fresh eggs cabinet
or something like that, but for now,
why don't we cook up together just one egg.
We'll keep it very simple, the preparation,
and we'll put it perhaps on a sliced tomato
just to see exactly how this egg tastes.
Just doing an over-easy egg on a bit
of sliced salted tomato.
(bubbly synth music)
Here's the moment of truth, guys.
Let's see what that yolk looks like.
Pretty bright yellow, kind of like a faint
bright yellow yolk there.
Not quite that deep orange that you want.
I'm pretty sure that's gonna come in time
as their diet varies.
But doesn't look weird, looks totally normal.
With a little bit of that right off the grill.
I'll just give it a crack.
I'm literally making this up.
I don't actually know how to cook that well,
but this is what's worked for me.
So I'm gonna come under and give it a quick "chuk"!
Just like that, give it a quick flip.
Looks pretty good to me.
Any comments you guys have on what I should really be doing
with the massive amount of eggs I should be getting,
I think I'll get about two dozen a week,
at some point soon, please let me know, 'cause, look,
I'm trying to get healthy, I'm trying to eat well,
trying to eat these eggs, and I'm gonna need some recipes
'cause I don't know how many times I'm gonna be able
to eat the same thing over and over and over again.
Flip it back, whew.
The moment of truth.
See if I got the over-easy, looks like I did.
Let's give it that smell.
Nice and fresh.
Quite good.
Quite good, I mean it is an egg that's just over-easy.
There's only so much you can do, but let's try this.
This I know to be a fantastic flavor combination.
A nice slab of a slicing tomato and a little piece of egg.
Here you go, and the tomato has the salt.
That's really good, we're starting to get to this point
on the homestead, guys, where much of what's on the plate
is gonna start being 100% generated here,
and actually some of my plans is to learn how to hunt
and fish better, so I can actually source
most of my proteins in a more ethical way,
and also in a way that is much more local.
So, something I'm really excited about.
Please let me know what I should be doing with all my eggs
and any stories you guys have of your first eggs,
I'd love to know down in the comments.
Until next time, good luck in the garden,
and keep on growing.