Dory with her first egg

This morning Todd found the first good egg from this year’s group of chicks.  I found one a few days ago that was broken and empty on the coop floor, so this is the first one laid in a nest box and intact.  We are pretty sure it is from Dory, one of our Welsummer hens.  We saw her spending a lot of time in the nest boxes and heard her making “egg” noises for the last few days. Being from Dory is even more special because of her rough “chickhood”.  She was a sickly little thing and had several bouts of respiratory problems that were so bad that I felt I had to keep her separated from the others.  Keeping her by herself did have the benefit of making her more friendly as she was lonely and wanted us to hold her.  A few times I really thought she might not even live so it is very rewarding to see that the extra special care that we put into raising her has helped her to become a healthy and now productive hen.  The egg is a beautiful dark brown with even darker brown speckling – a little on the small side, as they all are when hens first start laying, but they should be up to a nice large size very quickly.  Yeah, Dory!  Show the others what they are supposed to do now!