"Did anyone lock up the chickens?" I hear Kristine ask. Tom's watching tv. Kristine's watching a show on her computer. I'm posting photos to my blog. Soooo, into the silence I said, "I'll go lock them up." Tom says, "Check in the corner. A black hen has been sitting there most of the day." Ah! Photo OP. I grabbed my camera. It is 9:30pm and it is dark. Very dark. That light speck in the photo is the moon shining through the trees. I can't even see the trees. Well, I made it out to the coop with the help of a flashlight.
Surprise! There was a Dark Brahma roosting all by herself in the front open nest boxes.I went around to the roost side so I could get to the back wall corner and sure enough there is an Australorp hen in the corner. That is a Dark Brahma on the roost above her. You can get a glimpse of the other Dark Brahma on the front side.
Oh, and by the way, I'm doing all this in the dark. The flashlight doesn't add much light at all. The best light I get to see by is the flash from the camera. So, I manage to get myself scrunched up and bent over and grab the hen, pull her out and put her in the middle nest box with a Buff Brahma. She is not happy! Neither one of them are happy! And then I have to get my old bones to an upright position so I can climb back out. Phew!
Then I go back to look and see if there are any eggs. Oh, yes! There are four big beautiful eggs that I will have to get rid of. Phooey! Phooey! Phooey! She is a bad girl. But she didn't lay four eggs today, so there are some other hens on my list, but I don't know which ones. She wasn't there yesterday. I checked.
Since I was out there I counted the chickens. Yep! There are still eighteen chickens. So now what? The branches don't work to keep the hens away from this corner. I think the hen is broody and she just wants a quiet place to sit. I added the bottom nest box under the middle nest box because there were hens laying eggs in the dirt there. Maybe some hens just like dirt? I could add a nest box in the corner, but that area is under the roosts and that wouldn't work out very well. Oh, well, small problems. I'll see what I can come up with tomorrow.
I deleted the photos I had uploaded that I was going to post and then posted this little adventure. I suppose climbing around in the coop is good exercise for me and I should thank the girls for keeping me limber. Cluck, cluck girls!
[9 eggs today]
and 4 eggs in the dirt
Smiles
~:>
2 comments:
I guess some of those hens just want to by mommy hens, even if they actually can't. Maybe it's just that time of year? I've got it! If you need to cool off their chests to get them to stop being broody, take a big fan outside and hold the broody hens in front of it! :D Or, ice packs in the places you don't want them? Nah, these are just silly suggestions. :D Go check the coop every 2-4 hours, and chase out any hen that's sitting in a bad spot?
No, those are all good suggestions. I read the ice packs in the nest box treatment before and the other ones too. My problem is that I can't tell which are the broody hens from the ones who are just in there laying an egg. Thanks for the ideas.
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