I feel so bad, only cause dear hubby has to search in weird places for eggs. They bawk bawk at me when I go to the pole barn to collect from their improvised nests. They bawk bawk at me when I look in the coop. They give me the evil eye when they are on the nests laying. I will be so glad when we have the new coops built. I am segregating for breeding, and we are building a setup for this. I will be collecting eggs from behind the coop, and they will have no choice but to lay where I have the nests. They will be free ranging, but at particular times. Right now they free range all day long, hence the hidden nests. The two sneakiest locations, one had 10 eggs today in it, and the other one I found about a month ago had 24....... It is amazing that they yell at me, especially since they announce to the world, for 5 or 10 minutes, "Hey!!! I laid an egg!!!" Chickens, gotta love them. Cheri
That is hilarious. Mine do talk to me when I take them, but they have a confined space. So they are hard to hide, not that they don't!
I came on here tonight especially to post what is going on when my wife or I go in the closed chicken coop to get eggs. We have 3 Rhode Island Reds and 3 Buff Orpingtons. To tell them apart, we have put bands on their legs, and we refer to them by their bands (Left Red - band on left leg; Right Red - band on right leg, Naked Red - no band on legs; and the same thing with the buffs: Left Buff, Right Buff and Naked Buff). They have a dedicated, closed in hen house complete with two nests, with a easy to lift roof to lay their eggs in. All we have to do is lift the roof and reach down to get the eggs. The chickens, on the other hand, have to walk through the door of their hen house to see what we are doing. Anyway, lately, everytime we go lifting that roof to get the eggs, Naked Red walks into the hen house to watch what we are doing. She squawks at us big time, fussing at us for stealing their eggs. They have always been good about laying their eggs in the nests inside that henhouse, but a couple of days ago, I found an egg in a secluded area outside the henhouse, lightly buried in the pine shavings. I wondered if that might have something to do with Naked Red's concern over our robbing the nest of her (and her coop mates) work product. They get an hour of free range each afternoon, right before the sun goes down. This is a perfect time to clean the coop some and to fill the feeders and waterers. So right after the hens scampered out of the coop this afternoon, I went in to do the routine chores in there. I had filled the feeders and waterers, and was just standing there when in waddles Little Miss Naked Red. She waddles on in there, giving me the "evil eye" the whole time. Then she goes walking into the henhouse, looks around, then walks out and goes inspecting that secluded area where I found the egg a couple of days ago. She sees all is well (I had not yet removed today's eggs) and she walks out. Then I go walking over to the henhouse and start to lift the little plywood roof on it, and danged if Little Miss Naked Red doesn't come waddling on in at a fast pace to cuss me out for stealing her eggs. I mean that hen cackled, and she cackled and she cackled some more -- loud as she could cackle. Believe me, I KNOW when I have been cussed at by a little red hen!
I wonder if Naked Red's about to go broody, and trying to save up a clutch of eggs. Maybe you could leave some golf balls or wooden eggs in a nest for her, and save up some eggs in the house. Then if she does go broody, and you want some chicks, (Got roo?) you could take out the golf balls and give her the eggs. (Marked and dated with the expected hatch date, or with the date you set them under her, important so you can remove new eggs laid by other hens while she's brooding) If you don't have a roo, maybe leave a handful of golf balls anyway, so she'll keep laying where you want her to. Until she broods, anyway, then you'll have a dedicated broody with no fertile eggs!
