Collect a Dozen Eggs - PEP BB animal.sand.collecteggs

These are our coturnix quail, six females that I've cared for six months. They came from Granada in Andalucía, Spain. Coturnix are all the same bird regardless of feather color; there are no breeds, but these are referred to as Italian or Golden Manchurian. Only one has the telltale blue interior to her shells that suggests a recessive celadon gene. Another lays green-brown eggs. The distinctiveness of egg pattern makes it fairly easy to track who is laying. I keep a chart with my kids and discounting cracked and misformed eggs we're up to 676 today. They lay wherever they happen to be, but since they love the sandbox it's often there. Yes, chickens are permaculture rockstars, but quail will keep the peace with your close neighbors and tolerate smaller enclosures well if you clean often. I'm very fond of ours. I also find it extremely cathartic see their joy in fresh green things. I wish I could say the same for my young twins!

ETA: Yes, they do lay them *inside* the aviary. 5-6 daily, but I don't leave them in to get stepped on because they're not fertile ;)

Sounds like I have some badges to collect, so I'll start here!

I have a flock of easter eggers and ameraucanas (with a few others mixed in now and again, usually leghorns and australorps) and I've been maintaining them for 8 years or so now. I breed them. Last year I hatched out around 50 chicks! We usually have one rooster and a dozen hens at any given time.


I hope a picture of a mom with her chicks is good enough fo "a bird in the nest box". They run out of the nests every time they see me if they aren't broody!
My first ever eggs. What a day that was! Very exciting for me.
Lastly 2017's batch of gathered eggs for hatching! I don't have a lot of pictures of full dozens, but here's one of two!

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
- You must gather 12 eggs

To document completion of the BB, provide the photos or video (<2 min) of the following:
- Tell us in 1 paragraph or less about the hens/ducks/etc you are collecting the eggs from (Are they yours? A friends? How many hens?)
- A bird in the nesting box
- An egg in the nesting box
- A full egg carton with the eggs you have collected

The eggs I collected came from my flock of 10 black Orpington hens. Attached is a photo of the flock.

The bird in the nesting box isn't a great photo, but she's there. My girls are a skittish group!

There are several eggs in the box.

I usually store my eggs in this pretty yellow bowl. But for the BB certification, I filled a carton given to me by a neighbor. During the spring months, we give away a lot of eggs to thankful friends!

Hubby runs a small chicken/egg business, but at the moment collecting the eggs is my job. Our "commercial" eggs are from chickens in portable shelters with hanging nest boxes that I had to make super-light so #2 Son could move the shelter (I need help if I do that job as I simply don't have the mass.) At the moment I'm collecting about 100 chicken eggs and some duck eggs daily, mostly from portable shelters like where the hen below resides with her 18 friends, however we've also got some young chickens in the Goose shelter and the odd one whose chicken friends reject them and they end up being "Miss Dickens" (a chicken in with the Ducks) and currently we even have Miss Chickovy - a chicken in with the Muscovy - any port in a storm if things get nasty.