Let the egg production begin

Nearly a month has gone by since we said goodbye to our Bettys. You don't realize how much something (a routine or a living, breathing thing) becomes so woven into the fabric of your day-to-day life. We've really missed them. We were told that the new hens would be ready to pick two days later so we were scrambling to find a good home. Then, we remembered we live in Costa Rica... two days can mean two weeks... or a month as it happens. In that time, Kevin fixed the fence and posts that needed to be repaired. We cleaned out the coop, added more perches, painted the floor and so forth. Yesterday, I added fresh wood chips in the nests and on the floor.

We picked up our 15 hens in Santa Maria and introduced them to their new home. I hadn't realized how must our Bettys trusted us and felt comfortable around us. We were able to pick them up without too much fuss on their part. They were curious and would come close, peck our boots... they weren't afraid of us in the least. These new hens are skittish and unsure. I do remember standing (or sitting on a bucket) in the pen for 15 minutes or so every day for the first few weeks with our Bettys... just so they would get used to my presence and not feel worried or threatened. I'd forgotten how small and thin they are at this age (the Bettys were chunky monkeys by the end). These new hens are still quite young so we may have to wait a couple of weeks before they start laying eggs. We've been buying eggs from the grocery store for the last month and they're fine, but not the same. And I loved being able to bake whenever I wanted to and know all I had to do was walk up to the hen house and get fresh eggs. We never ran out. Our neighbours have been patiently waiting as well... they keep asking us when they can buy some of ours. It's nice to know there's a demand.

We've decided to call these hens Egna(s), but to be honest, I have a feeling we'll be reverting back to Bettys. We started out calling the trout "the girls" before we christened them "Trevorettes", but it never really stuck. Twenty months in, and we're still calling them 'the girls'. So, we'll see how we do with the name Egna. It seems easy enough, we shouldn't trip over it... but habits die hard. To be continued...

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