After 17 weeks of waiting (impatiently) I came home from work the other day to find our first egg! It was a perfect, medium sized white egg, laying on the ground in the pen. I had been expecting our White Leghorn to be the first to lay because her comb had gotten very large suddenly. Another sign of readiness was that she began squatting down when I approached her instead of running off like the rest of her flock. This is a sign of submissiveness that usually occurs shortly before laying begins.

I was concerned that she did not lay the egg in one of the nesting options we have. Our coop has two nesting boxes inside of it, but our hens actually sleep in them instead of roosting. Because of this, I figured they would not want to use them as nests. I placed a dishpan and a water bucket filled with straw in the dark corner of the pen. I added several golf balls to them and our girl finally figured out that the water bucket would be a better option than the ground!