Scrambled, Fried, or Poached...

If you come to my house I will ask you how you want your eggs and then go to my hen house and get some fresh eggs. I have actually had chickens for quite some time now but I have been a little embarassed of them. Well maybe not embarassed of them per se but more of my inability to get eggs from these darn things. You see we started out with two chickens when I arrived here. Hilda had 5 and remained with two....one male one female. She told me that she had got them when they were just chicks and and they were now at least one year old and still hadn't laid a single egg. Me being a vet could see the problems and instantly set out to fix them. #1 - There was no place for chickens to lay eggs, so I made a nest box out of cardboard - easy. #2 - They weren't being fed very often nor were they being chicken feed....just left over Matooke, bananas, rice, etc., so I bought some layer's ration - a $3 solution. #3 - There was no perch for the chickens to sleep on, I found an old stick and secured it about 3 feet off the ground in the hen house - I am such a genius! I awoke the very next morning with the desire for....ahhh let's make it scrambled today. I eagerly went to the hen house to find that they had decided to perch on the nest box leaving all the recently eaten food on top, removed all the nest material and had managed to knock down the new perch. I reached inside the box to find....more of the digested chicken feed. Ok, no big deal let's give them a couple more days. In the following days I heard many sounds of mating and found scattered feathers to prove it so was sure that I would soon be finding eggs. Well about a month in I decided I needed to purchase a laying hen. The new hen came to me strapped to the back of a bicycle for a whopping $4. She was really big and I was sure that soon eggs would arrive. I cleaned the house and nest box, put lots of laying hen ration in the feeder then put the new hen in (and listened to the fighting for a day). The next day I came to the hen house, opened the door and out came the new hen flying like a crazy chicken. She was quickly named C.C. (Crazy Chicken). From left to right you can see C.C., Todd (I don't really know why I called him that...I think because he twitches a lot which is kind of like a nod?) he is almost as crazy as C.C.and finally Helen who is the smartest, calmest, friendliest chicken Uganda has ever seen. She greets me every morning and it isn't uncommon to find her in the house searching for food.

So with time I assumed C.C. would lay some eggs or at least convince Helen to lay eggs. It seemed it was going to take some convincing. I tried buying eggs and putting them in the nest, I bought a new cage to give more sunlight, I brought them local plant that some woman told me was good for egg laying and still NO EGGS!

All the time I was getting more and more frustrated, everytime I go to the village I see these hens who have no cage, no food, no water, no nothing....well except for the clutch of chicks they have following behind them. Grrrr. I had pretty much given up on getting eggs from these darn things before I left here until the other day. You see I had told some friends that before I left we would slaughter one of my chickens and we would have a feast. Turns out that I have become a little too attached to Helen, I still think that someday C.C. might lay eggs and Todd, eventhough I don't like him, without him there is NO chance of getting chicks (which is really what getting eggs was all about for me). With the price of chickens steadily increasing I thought that I would buy two hens now and save them for when I leave. Turns out that the price already has gone up and I only took enough to the market to buy one.

The new hen REALLY caused a raucous in the hen house and I honestly thought I might wake up to a dead chicken in the morning. Much to my surprise I woke up to.....AN EGG!

I was sooo happy I literally started to jump around and dance. I can't for sure say that it is from the new hen but I can assume it was her (I know what assuming does so spare me the saying...ha ha ha) and for obvious reasons she has now been called Eggnes (Agnes). As of today I have 3 eggs and with any luckI might have a chick before the time I leave.

For those of you wondering why the chicken that was given to me in the village hasn't been included in my story it is because he was a rooster who Todd chased away on day 2 of his time with me. Yesterday I went on a rooster hunt to the neighbouring houses but I failed to find him, but if Dan asks you about him....just tell him he was really tasty!