PUSH! PUSH!

[theoldchick]

Who said laying an egg was easy?



Askew waits patiently for the process to start





She begans to pant and turns pale





Her buddy arrives to watch





She stands up to pushhhhhhhh.....





Pushhhhhh!






And she's not about to show me her egg after all that hard work.








Meanwhile, little Miss Don't-Take-My-Picture-Or-I'll-Scream has a hissy fit





And she does scream at me!

 

[sourland]

Is there no way a girl can get a little privacy?

 

[theoldchick]

 

[gryeyes]

For some reason, I really like the last photo, the one of the screamer.

It just makes me smile.

 

[theoldchick]

The sound she makes is hideous. At times she's such a drama queen.

 

[Dowie]

During a really hot summer, I thought one of my pekins was suffering heat stroke. She'd been in the nest box, and was pale and panting. She's had a bit of heat stroke before, so I raced her inside into the bathroom sink. The cool water only seemed to make her worse! Her breathing constricted, I thought 'Oh my God, is she going to die???' The noises were terrible!

And then I saw the egg. She'd had a water 'birth'.

After that, strangely enough, her colour returned and panting stopped.

Egg laying ain't easy.

 

[sourland]

Egg laying ain't easy.

Isn't that the truth. Just imagine passing a basketball ----- DAILY.

 

[theoldchick]

It is alarming to see how pale they get. It makes you wonder how painful the process is. And each of my hens seem to have a 'Lamaze' partner to help them through. I originally thought the hen standing by Askew was waiting for her turn in the nest box but she followed Askew out of the coop to lounge in the sun with her.

The Don't-get-near-me-while-I'm laying-my-egg has two Lamaze partners. You can tell by the scars on her face that she is recovering from the over amorous Mr. Steele, and I wonder if her two attending hens were her body guards? The three stick together while carousing with the flock. I call them the Triple Threat because at feeding time as they will knock anyone out of the way to get a snack.

Flock dynamics are fun to watch!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Such hard work they do. And no one thinks they deserve an extra treat here and there! (Well, no one in my family.)

I can't help but try to coach them on if I happen to come into the coop when one is in mid-egg-lay. The other hens aren't so supportive. Usually one of the two white Easter-eggers in my flock is in there screaming because someone is in HER nest--and it doesn't matter which nest it is, because it is HER nest and SHE was going to use it first! Then, I have a handful of hens that don't like to wait their turn and instead will jam their way in on top of the hen in the nest, whether there's another box open or not. I have only once found an egg on the back of a hen, evidence of one such impatient bird having been there. I have more fun watching them in the nests on a busy day than anything else--those girls get really intense sometimes!

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

Those JG eggs are HUGE. Mine don't fit in my egg containers so I have to set them on top.

It's no wonder they like to sit and relax and recover after all that work.