Since Mildred conveniently started laying around the first of the year, she made it easy to keep track. I bought a discounted calendar and started keeping track, beginning with the first discovery of an egg:

1/2/04 - 3 eggs found. (Mildred was standing on a sheltered pile of scrap wood I use for projects, cackling up a storm. Investigation showed she had laid an egg there, and it rolled off a piece of wood and broke in half. A sweep of the chicken coop found a nest she had made under what was supposed to be a roost, with two more eggs; one was the size and shape of a distorted ping-pong ball. The other was normally shaped. A small nesting box was then placed on the floor and Mildred was placed inside it. The eggs were opened and examined, then tossed out.)

1/3/04 - 1 egg. (The broken shell of an egg was found in the barnyard near the entrance of the goat stall. Decided to keep the chickens in the coop until mid-morning to early afternoon to encourage next box laying.)

1/4/04 - 1 egg. (In the nest box. Success!)

1/6/04 - 1 egg.

1/7/04 - 1 egg.

1/9/04 - 1 egg. (This one was inside the coop right next to the door and had a small, round crack in it. I opened it and gave it, sans shell, to Cleo - I don't want her learning how to open eggs. Let the chickens out early as a result.)

It looks to me like Mildred started laying as late as 12/31/03 at the tender age of four months. I wasn't expecting anything until March. Perhaps since Ross chickens are bred to grow to butchering size quickly (42 days), they also mature as layers faster. Also, the eggs being produced are brown, which supports a theory of my wife's that they are a cross between Rhode Island Reds and a large white breed like Plymouth Rocks.

My next project is to measure the lengths of the three eggs successfully collected so far. They're all medium looking in size, but it looks to me like they're getting larger as time goes on. Hmmm, wondering if I can get my hands on a small kitchen scale...