And I thought I was crazy!

[chickintexas]

My laying hens are out of their freakin' skulls!

I've been keeping a super duper close eye on my broody Silkie. She's got 3 of her own eggs under her and one of them has been peeping today. I had actually closed off the coop so she could have some privacy without the other laying hens possibly coming in and destroying the peeping egg. I went out to check on the birds and two of them were standing in front of the coop door, panting. Uh-oh! They had to go and they had to go Right Now! One girl went straight into her usual spot to lay. The other girl nuzzled right up to my Silkie and immediately started to steal her eggs! She tucked them under her nice and neat and then laid her own egg. After she was done, she left.

Q-Tip was able to get back onto her eggs again. Break time over. The other chicken that had her own spot had laid her egg first so I had taken that egg and tried to lure the egg thief to lay on that one instead. Nuh-huh. Wasn't happening. She just took that extra egg and tucked it in amongst Q-Tip's eggs.
This happened earlier today as well with my head hen. I thought at first that she was stealing the eggs because she heard one peeping and decided to take it upon herself to continue with the hatching. Nope. Just wanted some egg laying encouragement.
Chickens make me laugh.

 

[justbugged]

broodies and the other girls can be a lot of fun.

 

[redheadmama13]

My girls will lay in only two of the four nesting boxes, and when they gotta lay...I've seen the two boxes with two laying hens each. Everyone wants to lay their eggs with someone elses... The funniest was a few weeks ago when all my little pullets started laying and couldn't quite figure out what to do. One of them went in and out of the coop and was just plain confused. She eventually climbed in with an older hen and stuck her head around back to watch the action - then she finally settled down to lay. Guess she is a visual learner.