Silly, funny chicken behavior

[Chotii]

It's 9pm; it's dark outside but I have a light in the coop because even in August, we only have 14 hours of daylight, here at this latitude. I go out to lock the coop up...

The White Leghorn, who has never yet laid an egg (her companions have been laying a week or less, themselves), is playing with the litter on the floor. The litter is moss, raked from my yard. She is standing, picking up strands, and twisting her head around to deposit them on her back, first one side and then the other, over and over.

Finally, she climbs into the nest box. She fusses with the moss, reaching out into the coop to pull more in...dumping each strand or clump on her back, first one side and then the other.

I've heard of hens fussing with the straw or shavings, but this thing with the moss was just a crackup.

I suppose maybe there will be an egg in the morning but why oh why lay it at 9:00 at night?

 

[jjdward]

I have a hen that gets out of the pen every day and lays an egg in her favorite spot. For the longest time, it was the dog house. The dogs didn't mind so there was no problem, unless the dogs were IN the dog house. Then she just ran them out. When I go to get the eggs out of the coop, I would just stop by the dog house and get her egg. Well now, she has a new spot. She lays her eggs in my ATTIC!!!!!!! In the top of my back porch ceiling, there is a doorway to my attic. The door has fallen apart (I know I know, I need to fix it) and she flies up on the rafters of the porch, then into the attic. When she is done, she hops down and heads straight for the coop. If I see her I will walk down there and open the door to the coop and she goes right in. She is just a crazy chicken.

 

[shanonspeeps]

Wellll......do you have an egg??????

 

[thechickenchick]

Thats why I love them! They have great personality!

 

[cmom]

Quote:
I have one bird that will pick up just about anything such as a stick and twist her head around and put it on her back too. My DH was the first to notice this behavior and told me to watch her and sure enough I saw her doing it too. One of my younger birds likes to run around in circles. She eats and drinks just fine. I just love to watch them. It's better than watching TV.

 

[txchickie]

I have one pullet who puts shavings on her back as soon as she crawls in the nestbox to lay. She shakes them off when she's all finished. TOOOO cute!!!!

 

[Chotii]

No egg! No egg this morning! No egg by tonight!

I did find the usual brown egg in the nest, and a surprise brown egg from the Maran, with a bizarre white dusty coating on it that makes no sense to me, out in the run in the dust bath area, but no white egg.

But she HAS to be getting close. She never nested before. She never squatted before about a week ago. She must be feeling a serious urge to lay an egg. Come on, Sugar!

 

[Chotii]

So...we finally got a first egg out of the White Leghorn, and a dinky thing it was, too! So that was 3 eggs today. If they lay 3 eggs a day, I'm going to be overrun with eggs SOON. Sent half a dozen to the neighbor today, actually. Time to sweeten 'em up, since they have been noticing (ahem) the hens singing the egg song all afternoon!