What a surprise! Our first egg. She didn’t know to lay it in the nest, but learned very quickly thereafter. This was laid by one of the more “seasoned” hens. The younger ones are not six months old yet, so not quite past puberty.

I put a couple of golf balls into the nest to trick the girls into thinking it was a safe place to lay. Low and behold it worked.  Wherever they were free-ranging during the day, they always came back to the nest to lay their eggs. Whenever we needed eggs, we just reached into the nest and they were always waiting for us. Any egg older than about 20 minutes, seems old to us now :-).