One of my DSL Barnevelders laid her first egg today, at the ripe old age of exactly 10 months old. She did all the usual things - pacing and complaining impatiently when both nest boxes were occupied, yelling at her friends to hurry up, then straightening up the nest once inside, sitting in it for a while, and finally, announcing loudly to the world that she's a real woman now. Except that she lied. When I went out to check, I found that she had instead laid in the bushes! Either before or after the front she put up, I don't know. Okay, she's new, I thought, and maybe she couldn't hold it while both boxes were occupied. But why go through the motions in the nest anyway? She didn't say anything while she was outside.
Another weird thing about today is that there was a second egg in the run, in a different place - right outside the pop door. It belonged to the first pullet to lay, who's been perfectly diligent about the nesting box ever since she started laying on Thanksgiving Day. I've never found an egg outside the nesting boxes until today. Did she fail to "hold it" because both boxes were occupied, too? That never stopped her before. I have 5 pullets and 2 nesting boxes, and from what everybody has told me, I assumed it was enough, that they'd probably lay in the same one regardless of how many I give them, and that they'd wait their turn. The two that occupied the boxes didn't spend an unusually long time in there, just as long as usual (and both laid). So I don't understand these two eggs in the run today...
Theories?
Here she is, faking it.
Another weird thing about today is that there was a second egg in the run, in a different place - right outside the pop door. It belonged to the first pullet to lay, who's been perfectly diligent about the nesting box ever since she started laying on Thanksgiving Day. I've never found an egg outside the nesting boxes until today. Did she fail to "hold it" because both boxes were occupied, too? That never stopped her before. I have 5 pullets and 2 nesting boxes, and from what everybody has told me, I assumed it was enough, that they'd probably lay in the same one regardless of how many I give them, and that they'd wait their turn. The two that occupied the boxes didn't spend an unusually long time in there, just as long as usual (and both laid). So I don't understand these two eggs in the run today...
Theories?
Here she is, faking it.
