Found another hidden nest!

cosmicmama

Chirping
13 Years
Jun 6, 2011
38
16
99
Since finding the first eggs in a next in the woods three weeks ago, I've been fairly successful at getting my hens to lay in the coop. I've been getting 1-3 eggs per day from 5 young hens. It's a small coop so I haven't locked them in there 24/7 because of the heat, but I've been leaving them in until noon or so and I've seen both RIR's and the Ameracauna come back in the afternoon to lay there. Today, I went to let them out and found three brown eggs, so I know that three of my four "brown" chickens laid this morning. No green egg today. Conclusion, at least three of the four brown-egg hens and the only green-egg hen are laying in the coop. I let them out and decided to watch for a while.

My barred rock took off into the woods, so I followed her. She went to the back of my property, then down an embankment, and under a bramble of briars. I went and got on some different shoes and went down to check it out. I found her sitting on.....drum roll....................17 eggs!

I did the float test and smelled them all, they all seem good, but my significant other is dead set against eating any of these eggs since it's safe to assume that some of them are probably three weeks old. I'm more adventurous, I trust my nose, but he is scrambling up those eggs as we speak to feed back to the chickens.

I tore up the nest, and now have to rethink locking up the chickens for a week or so. It's supposed to be "cool" this week, not getting out of the '80s. My coop is the Ware Chick-n-Villa, its very small for the five girls, and I hate to leave them in there for a week, because they are used to having all the freedom they can stand. As it is, when I go outside to let them out every day, I can hear them crying to get out as soon as I open the back door.
 
We found a hidden nest last month and my husband also wouldn't eat them, although they were fine. We did scramble them up and gave them to the girls for good protein. Then that hen went broody in the nest box and hasn't wanted to come out for 5 weeks.
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It is hard to put them into lock down when they are used to free ranging.
 

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