Broody Easter Egger

[Petite Chateau Poulet]

We have a 6 1/2 month old Easter Egger (Margaret Hatcher). She is very "people attached", and has been laying for about a month. She was laying right on schedule until about a week ago. I realized that she didn't want to leave the nest box and had to remove her and make sure she was eating and drinking. I also noticed that she had laid two to three "rubber eggs", although their food is designed for layers and has the correct amount of calcium. This is perhaps a coincidence, but this all happened at about the same time we had that horrid, smokey air in western WA, blowing up from CA and OR. The other three ladies were also off their laying schedule, but otherwise their behavior didn't change. However, Margaret also began having issues with Olive, the Olive Egger, who began bullying behavior toward her. Olive tries to drive Margaret away from the food and flock block, and Margaret seems to be quite afraid of her.
I remove Margaret from the box many times a day to make sure she is eating, drinking and walking around, but her plucky, happy self is not evident. She seems to want to attach to me and jumps on my back whenever I am working in the run. She did lay an egg this morning, which was normal, but rather than blue, it was brown. WOW!!! What is going on?
Any ideas?

 

[Katie386]

It sounds to me that olive needs to be demoted. Meaning she needs to be seperated until she is at the bottom of the pecking order. I have no clue about the eggs though, maybe the brown one was not hers. A broody hen steals as many eggs as she wants.

 

[Petite Chateau Poulet]

Thank you so much for your response. We have very heavy rain right now, and I don't have room for a separate space that is out of the rain, but as soon as this storm passes, Olive will have "new digs" for attitude adjustment.
Actually, the brown one was Margaret's, because I saw her while she was laying it. So weird. I've never had chickens before, and I've been learning something new just about every day since we brought them home. I need all the help I can get.

 

[Katie386]

I’m new to chickens too I’ve had chickens about 8 months now. i love chickens but there is a lot I didn’t know lol. The flies!! as well as the diseases they can get. Unfortunately I didn’t do research well enough and right now my poor chickens have all got fowl pox =( . But they are handling it very well and I think they will All recover. Fingers crossed. If you don’t know about fowl pox I would research that. It’s caused mainly by mosquitos. Good luck with your babies!

 

[Petite Chateau Poulet]

Always something new to learn. I wish you and your ladies well. Fortunately, we have very few mosquitos in western WA......Whew!!! Freezing and snow are another matter, and I'll have to deal with that in the next few months.