I’m no spring chicken, but
We fed the girls yesterday afternoon around 4:00 and the big nested straw hole they all lay in was empty. This is what greeted Chris when he opened up the tractor lid this evening around 5:00 after work.
I counted 21 eggs in the bowl. We have 11 chickens. Somebody’s working overtime without pay.
ETA: Turns out Chris found about 8 or 9 of these under some straw next to the spot they always lay in. We had put down fresh straw the day before, so clearly they worked that batch underneath with all of their scratching. But still! All of a sudden full production—I have 4 dozen eggs in the fridge. Yum!
"In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy."
~Henry David Thoreau
March 12th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
[…] Original post by Kelly […]
March 12th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
ROFLOL…any chance some were buried under the straw? Some of those look like they’ve been laying around longer than an hour, or even a day.
March 13th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
They were probably inspired to lay right after being fed yesterday. There’s no way a hen can lay more than one in a day, so they must have all laid yesterday and this morning! Wow! Definitely hard working gals!
I love seeing a big bowl full of fresh eggs.
March 13th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Did they lay them in the Tractor lid? TALENTED chicks. For sure that calls for at least hazard pay.
March 14th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Steph, how can you tell if they look older? I’ve never thought about it. We have 5 varieties of girls, so I just assumed that was the difference.
Angelina, yes, I suspect that’s what it was.
Marcia, no they have a spot in the corner of the tractor where they always build a huge straw nest and they take turns laying. We had nesting boxes for them but they refused to use them so we had to take that rig out so we could reach the eggs.
March 15th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Oh, you lucky thing! Working overtime indeed.