It had been 5 days, and not a single egg had been in our nest boxes. At first we though the three ladies were taking a break, but today when shut inside the tractor coop's run instead of being let out, 3 eggs showed up right on time in the nest boxes. Time to do a little investigating.
Our three girls
Red: Hatchery RIR. Top hen. Don't mess with her.
Bluebell: Buff Orpington. Knowing her, she's probably the mastermind behind the whole thing.
Oreo: Dominique, the sweetheart.
Empty nest boxes for days... Things are getting desperate.
Without my knowledge, someone even bought some store eggs out of the fear we'd run out before the case was solved.
The little ladies are obviously unbothered. How can they play around when there's eggs to be found? Ha, that rhymes.
Quick sweeps of our suburban backyard reveal nothing...
Not under the flower bush...
And not near the compost pile.
Time to take it up a notch. First place of suspicion: Under the deck.
But nothing.
Nada.
Not under the stairs either.
Alright alright, there are plenty of other places to look.
Second place of suspicion:
The old playhouse.
Again, no eggs.
Not even under the playhouse.
No sign of eggs anywhere.
I block off access to underneath the playhouse just in case, and call it a day.
"Don't look at me! It was their idea."
The search continues. Today, I revisit the playhouse. A glance behind it reveals nothing either.
Getting frantic, I get down on hands and knees and crawl into the small space.
But wait! What's that?
My phone flashlight shines a light on the situation. The missing eggs have been found. Don't even ask me how the ladies got under there.
I dig them all out... All 18 of them. And 18 of them means they had already started carrying out their plan before 5 days ago when the eggs completely stopped coming.
"What even are these? I had nothing to do with this."
I was ill prepared for the discovery. Sigh... This is what my chickens force me to stoop down to.
And in fact, more of the eggs under there were from Bluebell than the other two. Now that I think of it, we stopped getting eggs from her a week and a half ago, when she got sick. She recovered completely on her own in a couple days, and we thought the lack of eggs from her was because her sickness. Now I know better! Bluebell, just as I suspected, was the ringleader in the plot.
Maybe they were planning for easter? That's not until April, guys! The hens were hiding the missing eggs to fool around with us, more likely. They probably enjoyed the chaos and hysterics and drama. We might've secretly enjoyed it too, when we weren't too busy being baffled by the mystery. 'Tis the life of a chicken owner.
Our three girls
Red: Hatchery RIR. Top hen. Don't mess with her.
Bluebell: Buff Orpington. Knowing her, she's probably the mastermind behind the whole thing.
Oreo: Dominique, the sweetheart.
Empty nest boxes for days... Things are getting desperate.
Without my knowledge, someone even bought some store eggs out of the fear we'd run out before the case was solved.
The little ladies are obviously unbothered. How can they play around when there's eggs to be found? Ha, that rhymes.
Quick sweeps of our suburban backyard reveal nothing...
Not under the flower bush...
And not near the compost pile.
Time to take it up a notch. First place of suspicion: Under the deck.
But nothing.
Nada.
Not under the stairs either.
Alright alright, there are plenty of other places to look.
Second place of suspicion:
The old playhouse.
Again, no eggs.
Not even under the playhouse.
No sign of eggs anywhere.
I block off access to underneath the playhouse just in case, and call it a day.
"Don't look at me! It was their idea."
The search continues. Today, I revisit the playhouse. A glance behind it reveals nothing either.
Getting frantic, I get down on hands and knees and crawl into the small space.
But wait! What's that?
My phone flashlight shines a light on the situation. The missing eggs have been found. Don't even ask me how the ladies got under there.
I dig them all out... All 18 of them. And 18 of them means they had already started carrying out their plan before 5 days ago when the eggs completely stopped coming.
"What even are these? I had nothing to do with this."
I was ill prepared for the discovery. Sigh... This is what my chickens force me to stoop down to.
And in fact, more of the eggs under there were from Bluebell than the other two. Now that I think of it, we stopped getting eggs from her a week and a half ago, when she got sick. She recovered completely on her own in a couple days, and we thought the lack of eggs from her was because her sickness. Now I know better! Bluebell, just as I suspected, was the ringleader in the plot.
Maybe they were planning for easter? That's not until April, guys! The hens were hiding the missing eggs to fool around with us, more likely. They probably enjoyed the chaos and hysterics and drama. We might've secretly enjoyed it too, when we weren't too busy being baffled by the mystery. 'Tis the life of a chicken owner.