Our chickens lay nice sized eggs, the silkie’s are a small and the others are what I would call grocery store large. A duck egg is nearly twice the size and weight of the normal sized chicken egg.

So imagine my surprise when I saw this

Sorry for the photo, not a camera with a charged battery anywhere to be found. But yes, that huge blue behemoth in the center is a chicken egg! The egg on the left is a full sized big old duck egg and the one on the right is a large brown chicken egg. This thing was three inches in length…it was HUGE. It was a nice big double yolk egg too.

It’s the little things I tell ya…the little things.

So Todd comes in just now and tells me of a ruckus in the hen house. He was checking for late layers in the big girls house and the Silkies were just going nuts next door in theirs…just crazy squawking! He goes in and there is a silkie on her nest just carrying on and the others are having a fit too. Todd reaches under her and pulls out two eggs, one little brown silkie egg and one REALLY BIG BLUE egg. hmmmmmm…..

So he looks around, and nope…no intruder. Just a sea of fuzzy white little chickens. I’m sure by now he is thinking to himself “wooo hooo! We have a special silkie!” Don’t tell him I said that though….I just know how this man thinks after all these years Then out of no where comes a loud cluck. Totally un-silkie like. And there she was….MADGE!

Somehow she must have run in there when we went for eggs and was taking up residence with her little silkie sisters. Todd never noticed her because she was hanging out in the silkie pile. Only one problem with that-the silkies really dislike old Madge. They were more than happy to blow her cover!

Oh sure it’s fine in moderation…poison, poison I tell you! I read this article on Mother Earth News this am:

HFCS is manufactured with an ingredient that is sometimes still produced in outdated industrial chlorine plants that rely on mercury-based technology. The ingredient (caustic soda) becomes contaminated and in turn contaminates the syrup.

Researchers tested 55 products and found mercury in nearly one-third of them, including Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars, Jack Daniels Barbeque Sauce and more.

You can read the entire article here

Here is a link to the list…feed you babies Quaker Oatmeal to-go this morning? Drink Coke Classic…You may want to re-think that…

And for those of you who find this exciting (and you know who you are!)…I’m putting the chicken diary online today! You can read the daily diary of the eggs we collect from our family flock.

And please keep the jingles coming for little Dumplin’. We had to change to Thursday because our weather is so cold and not conducive to scoping. He’s fine…really…but it is just a cautionary procedure to make sure there is nothing sinister brewing up there. Gotta keep the Dumplin’ healthy!