We got home yesterday from a three week vacation. One of our RIRs started laying while we were gone and there were four eggs in the nest boxes. That's the exciting part. The bummer part is that our favorite sweet, cute little araucana hen (pictured in my avavtar) has turned into an ugly, belligerent rooster, crowing to beat the band and nailing anything that gets within 5 ft of him. He has taken total control of all six RIRs and left his original flock of all his siblings behind. I knew we had a couple of roos in the flock but he showed no signs 3 weeks ago. Now we have 5 for the freezer.
