Chickens

Let’s start with a refresher…

Dale is a bantam chicken, which means she’s a tiny little girl who lays tiny little eggs. She was our first hen to lay and she’s laid 6 out of 7 days ever since.

Naomi is not a bantam chicken, but she is somewhat small in size and has not been a very good layer. In fact, I’ve not really been sure which eggs were hers since she doesn’t sit in the nest boxes for long and after being there, we do not find eggs. I thought maybe she was the one laying the soft shell eggs – smallish, brownish in color. It seemed likely, just based on the visits to the boxes and the finding of the eggs.

In the last few days, we’ve had multiple cameras in the coop and run, trying to figure out a) who is not laying in the nest boxes b) who is laying the soft shell eggs c) who is laying which brown eggs. We haven’t had much luck with this – Exhibit a is Friday, a six egg day, and we don’t know 100% who laid which eggs – except for Dale and Charlotte, (Charlotte lays the largeish white eggs.) At night, when the girls are closed into their coop, I generally turn all but two of the cameras off to preserve battery and so they aren’t distracted by the light coming on and off due to movement in the coop. A couple nights ago, I forgot to turn off the cam that’s pointed straight at the most popular nest box and we discovered Dale was sleeping in that box.

The day after discovering Dale was sleeping there, we realized that besides the fact that it takes her a couple hours on the nest to lay an egg, and the other girls often disturb her and she has to start all over again… she was spending a good 20 hours on the nest. Maybe more. That’s not ideal and it’s really not ideal when she’s growling at people or chickens who come near the box. That is a broody hen and we do not want a broody hen.

The day after this… Dale did not lay an egg. Another sign that she’s broody is that she would stop laying. And, she did not want to get off of the nest this morning – I had to shoo her off by waving a feed bag aka the cover of the nest box around.

So…I went out and took the lid off the nest box and I put an ice pack in the nest. Cold next and bright light should dissuade her from using the nest. Which it did… but she just moved to the one next to it. So… TW went out there and dunked her in a bucket of cold water to further dissuade her from her broody behavior and added a fan to the coop, pointing directly at the nest.

During this dunking and immediately after, Naomi wandered into the coop and in and out of nest boxes and… plopped herself down in the nest on top of the ice pack, underneath the fan. And… she sat there for awhile, got up and left, came back etc… Dale, DID NOT LEAVE… in fact, TW saw her on the video camera pushing an egg around. Must have been Naomi’s egg because Naomi is the only other hen who has been in the coop today…

So, TW went out there and got the egg – which Dale did not like. And… Naomi returned to the coop, plopped back down on that nest and STAYED… whut? TWO BROODY HENS? Naomi stayed and stayed and stayed and Dale stood right next to her and stared at her and did not move and did not move and when she moved, Naomi growled and pecked her. TWO BROODY HENS!?!

So, we had lunch and we both went outside. TW intended to dunk Naomi and maybe dunk Dale again and we’d put them in Sesame Street without any bedding and see if we could pretend that was a Broody Breaker Box since we don’t happen to have such a box handy.

While TW caught Naomi and dunked her, I filled water bottles and food bowls and put the camera up in Sesame Street and fixed some hardware cloth that had come loose. After the dunking, Naomi went into Sesame Street and TW tried to catch Dale. That did not go well as Dale is broody and only wants the nest and Dale also knows that TW has a bucket of water. While TW was chasing Dale, I was putting random chicken things away and noticed… an egg… on the ground… in Sesame Street. WHUT?

How did Naomi lay that creamy egg in Sesame Street when she had already laid the brown egg that TW had taken away from Dale in the coop an hour earlier???

Does this mean Naomi is NOT broody, she was just annoyed that she was sitting on a cold ass nest trying to lay with a broody Dale watching her every move?

Does this mean that… someone ELSE laid that brown egg that Dale was pushing around? If so – who? And when? And where did Dale find it? Is there a clutch of eggs somewhere that we do not know about?

WHAT is happening?

We never did catch Dale. She flew over the fence, landed on Mr Frank’s fence and sat there til we walked away. Then she got on the ground and wandered over to Sesame Street all on her own (walk of shame?) and there she is … all alone, and in the coop without any bedding much less a nest and THERE IS NO EGG. We know this for sure.

But the mystery remains – WHO laid that brown egg and where was it hiding?

Dale’s Egg

Naomi’s Egg

Mystery Egg

All Three Eggs (Mystery Egg at the top, Dale’s next, Naomi’s at the bottom.)

Poor little foofball! I’m pretty sure Dale did that on purpose – which probably is some kind of retaliation since Dale is at the bottom of the pecking order in general.

And someone is ALWAYS watching you – particularly if you’re a Rooster who has been involved in two dog incidents or a Rooster who has been involved in one dog incident. Always watching, the cameras are always watching.