Our Americauna hen laid her first egg yesterday...as far as we know. The Commander found it up in the sheep hay loft while he was moving bales. An extensive search failed to produce any other green eggs so that is how we deduced that this was her first egg.
That morning when the Commander opened the buck's side door he discovered Mamma chicken waiting to get inside. It seems that Mamma chicken has started laying again and she has chosen the buck barn as her nesting area.
I have recently found roosters hiding in the nest boxes at lunch time, I can think of no sensible reason for why they would be doing that. It seems that when they get in the boxes they roll any eggs out into the center aisle, great.
So today checking for eggs consisted of; pulling out a ladder and searching the sheep hay loft (1), running two stinky bucks out of their barn and searching through the waste hay (1), rummaging through the aisle hay in the coop (1), and chasing roosters out of the nest boxes (0). Not a bad haul for a cold winter day, looks like hunting season has begun.
That is so funny that you have to search for your eggs! The only time our roosters go into the nest box is when they want to tell the hens the nest boxes were just cleaned: All the birds love a clean coop, and Muffin the rooster announces it with the same call he makes when there's food, calling all the hens in to inspect the coop. Then he goes into one of the nest boxes and calls then hens over there. He knows they go sit in the boxes. But he doesn't mess with their eggs, luckily.
ReplyDeleteWe have 2 hens that use nest boxes in the chick/infirmary coop because they are bigger boxes and the hens are larger hens, too. But whenever we close off the infirmary coop, those hens use the regular nest boxes in the coop.
Good luck with your hunting!
~Lynn
Lynn - It is becoming just silly now, I can't find the eggs anywhere and I know they are laying. The woods must be full of eggs!
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