Over 24 hours in Evergreen now.
This morning we found that one of the barred rocks had laid an egg on top of the wire dog kennel where both barred rocks had roosted for the night. All 35 young chickens seem to be doing well. I think I got them all back into the mini-van coop tonight but it's very difficult to count them and somewhere between 19 and 21 had already made their way up the ramp from the garage into the back of the van when I started trying to coral the others for the night.
My 8 adults spent most of the day out in the dog run, although they could access the garage through a dog door if they wanted to. One of my barred rocks and one of the Welsummers seemed to be franticly in search of a place in the garage to lay, willing to consider but ultimately unhappy with various locations I had tried to create for them. Finally I emptied and cleaned out the cat's carrier, removed the door, filled it with hay and pine shavings, placed it on top of the dog crate and introduced the barred rock to it. She finally seemed happy because when I came out to check later, there was a barred rock egg AND a Easteregger egg in the cat carrier. The Welsummer however was not impressed. I'm worried about her because I haven't found an egg anywhere and I wonder what not laying one will do to her system.
Any advice for dealing with stressed out chickens (and stressed out chicken owners) would be appreciated.
