In February of 2017 I did an egg apron experiment for a friend with chickens. I made three kinds of egg apron from simple white cotton fabric that I had in my stash.
Photo description: white egg apron with woven rope tie and two rows of pleated pocketsPhoto description: round bottom apron with braided rope tie, large pocket with two hand access ports and division seams along the bottom edge to keep eggs from knocking togetherPhoto description: harvest style white apron with buttoned up large “pockets” to hold eggs or producePhoto description: same harvest style white apron unbuttoned
The experiment was interesting. The round bottom apron was hard to get the eggs out, the pleated pockets were nice, but if you leaned over too fast the eggs rolled out, and the harvest apron didn’t keep the eggs separated.
Now, with three of my own chickens and one or two eggs, I just use my pants pockets. Even when we had more chickens the aprons were more of a pain than helpful. Egg baskets are a more practical solution.
What an eventful day. We have had our first eggs (!!!) and put the first chicken in isolation.
Navi in the center
The move to isolation came first. I noticed a couple days ago that Navi had a larger crop than everyone else, like softball size and squishy. But she is eating and moving around, and I kept checking in the afternoon and evening. After consulting with my Mom and the chicken health book, we decided to check again in the morning to see if her crop empties. The isolation is to be able to observe her droppings and catch her before she hit the food bin in the morning. We decided not to make any further measures because her breath is not sour smelling as would be the case with sour crop.
Navi in isolation ward. She has a roost, but came off it when we left.
While setting up the isolation ward (I had been using it for storage), my eldest asked if I had checked the nest boxes for eggs. Honestly I had not in a couple days because I had resigned myself to no eggs until the chickens were 8 months old. So she checked. Not only were the nesting boxes behind the curtains visibly sat in, there were eggs in both bins! Holy cow! Three itty bitty eggs! (Yes, I weighed them! 38g, 38g, and 35g, which is about 1.3 ounces each. Extra small eggs.)
Critters and Craft 