I cleaned out the coop yesterday afternoon to do a pre-winter scrub down. (A hint to anyone out there- an air compressor with a gun nozel on it works great to blow shavings and cobwebs out of the corners!). While i was doing this I turned my four 23week old Buff Orps out to roam the yard. One of them wasn't interested in staying with the group, and everytime I turned by back she snuck back into the coop. I had to keep kicking her out, I had just mopped the floor and she was getting muddy chicken footprints all over. After all was dry and the shavings were down, I finally let her back in (usually its difficult to get them to go in before dark.) After I put my tools away, I went to check to see where she was. She was sitting in the nest box on the ping pong balls! I knew it was coming soon. I rounded up the others, put them in the outdoor run (they seemed to know not to go back in the coop) and headed inside. I was in the farthest corner of the house from the coop with my window open, (62° in the middle of November in Massachusetts? yes please!) and my dad was outside with the leaf blower- and over the sound of that, i heard this noise come from outside- at first, writing it off as kids in the neighborhood. Then I remembered my chickens strange behavior and went TEARING outside, and there, in the middle of the run on the dirt ground, was a tiny but perfect brown egg! The initial noise i heard was very quick, but the other girls joined in on the squawking for several minutes.
My question is, after they get the hang of doing this regularly, do they still make that noise each time? Granted, they will eventually learn to do it in the nest box inside the coop and not out in the open run, but if I could hear it INSIDE my house over a leaf blower, I'm a little concerned. It wasn't a big deal this time because it was about 3:30 in the afternoon, but what if someone lays at 6am? Is it going to wake up the whole neighborhood? I can excuse them the noise while they get used to it, but i'm a little scared...
PS: You should have seen me running through the yard like an absolute NUT yelling EGG! EGG! EGG!
My question is, after they get the hang of doing this regularly, do they still make that noise each time? Granted, they will eventually learn to do it in the nest box inside the coop and not out in the open run, but if I could hear it INSIDE my house over a leaf blower, I'm a little concerned. It wasn't a big deal this time because it was about 3:30 in the afternoon, but what if someone lays at 6am? Is it going to wake up the whole neighborhood? I can excuse them the noise while they get used to it, but i'm a little scared...
PS: You should have seen me running through the yard like an absolute NUT yelling EGG! EGG! EGG!