my good egg

Oliver holding his amazing, wacky 4-incher

A few of our chickens have been laying defective eggs. Every day, I am finding one or two soft-shelled eggs (an odd thing if you've never seen one, like a delicate water balloon with a yolk inside). There are also a couple of eggs that have a hard but wrinkled shell, or a misshapen shell.

There are many possible causes for this problem, all difficult to nail down. Illness, parasites, stress, second-rate bird, who knows? Eventually, we will figure it out.

Our egg customers get only the perfectly smooth, gorgeous eggs. The ones that don't look so pretty are used here at home. I try to figure out how to i.d. the fine-feathered culprits who are laying the awful looking ova, but short of sitting out there all day, I don't know how to determine the source of imperfection. Lately, I've been thinking about what to do with the bad chickens who are laying these eggs. Should I give them away to someone looking for a fresh roaster? Do away with them myself? I don't think I can live with any of these solutions, but I do consider the possibilities.

On Friday morning, Oliver and I were making pancakes. Bemoaning the very existence of our unsightly eggs, I gave him this huge, crazy, misshapen one to crack into the batter. As he took it from my hand, his eyes widened in wonder and he became extremely excited. "Mama!" he cried, "Which chicken laid this egg? We have to go out and thank that nice chicken for giving us this best egg! I love this egg! What a good chicken!"

Wow. Wow. Ebulliant Oliver was so profusely thankful in heaping the praise upon this mystery chicken and it's special egg, I realized that once again, there was a deeper message for me. I'll take some of that perfect perspective any day. Thank you, Oliver.