When the rat snake posted up inside the pullets’ pen i thought, “what in the world are you doing in there? Why not get in the adult chicken pen where they have an occasional egg? Because the pullets were not supposed to start laying until september, so they started 3 weeks early. Turns out, the snake knew something i didnt. Though i still havent killed him, ive dragged him with a snake stick once and spent a night eternally frustrated with jammed less-than-professionally-made rat shot stuck diagonally in my rifle and may or may not have hit him with rat shot once on that night when the rifle actually ejected a bullet once without it becoming lodged…on those days he did not visit the chicken coop for a bit and it resulted in me noticing something i hadnt seen before in the coop; Eggs. The blue egg confirmed that nana pudding was indeed an americauna with her little cheek floofs and it turns out i have at least one speckled egg layer out of the chocolate orpingtons. One of my rather religious friends that usually gets free eggs is now overly concerned about eating a concepted being now that there are roosters involved which led to a rather unexpected conversation about when a baby chicken is considered alive…. Which ended in me saying, “look, this is farming. Theres roosters and the eggs are fertilized. But its not like you’re going to open the egg and it’ll be a bird inside. Its just an egg. Eat it or dont.” The person eats meat and so it was a concern that took me by surprise. I just didnt have the patience to convince someone to receive my free resource nor was i going to get rid of the roosters because the person who eats animals is now concerned with whether eating a fertilized egg is considered killing a baby. What i didnt realize was that nana pudding was about to be famous. Everyone who had ever received eggs from me was used to getting light brown eggs. But bow they were getting cartons with four blue eggs dotted amongst the brown in each carton. People liked nana pudding’s eggs so much i realized that i would have to make sure i always had a token americauna amongst any batch of orpingtons i raised, as people were now enchanted with the combination of brown and blue eggs. I say token americauna rather than just raise americaunas because nana pudding is way faster, smaller, and smarter than the orpingtons she was raised with. The orpingtons are friendly, docile, kind of lumbering 10 lb chickens. They’re easy to catch, easy to load up, and they dont attempt escape very often. Nana pudding is sharp as a whip, tries to escape daily, is the ring leader of any and all mischief achieved, and is impossible to catch for load up at night or poultry lice dusting. She is a giant pain in my rear…and perhaps the most important chicken i have. Because a nearly 3 year old child has announced that from this point on she will only eat the blue eggs, even though her mother swore to her that the blue and brown eggs taste just the same! So, we either lie to the child and tell her that the eggs on her plate were all blue eggs, or nana pudding needs to lay 5 for that child’s carton. I think one americauna is enough for me to deal with at the moment but i dont want the baby to go without her breakfast protein so, even when it takes me a fifteen minute wild goose chase…i do make sure nana pudding is loaded up at night so that predators cant eat her. Ive already asked and my coworker who raises americaunas exclusively agreed to sell me a female chick to add to my next batch of orpington chicks a couple years from now. Because i cant tell the hatchery to throw a mystery chick in the box next time…there’s no guarantee it’d be an americauna. Estella said she will definitely sell me an americauna or two in the future if i need her to. I think that’s a requirement now, a token americauna in the mix, because people are going gaga for these little blue eggs mixed in amongst the brown ones.
