I was outside working in the shop today and my DW called me to see something, lo and behold she had found a secret nest in the flower bed alongside the barn. There were 19 eggs in there, no telling how long but the upshot was some time ago I had been hearing the eggsong in the vicinity of the back porch area. Never could find the hen or the eggs laying around but we had been getting only two or three eggs in the coop. Ended up confining them to the coop for a few weeks, still letting them out for a couple of hours in the evening but we began getting more eggs almost immediately. So...we had a couple three or four hens sneaking around in a secret nest.....you just never know.....the nest was behind a big barrel planter and against the barn wall, covered pretty well by flowers....for all we know there may be some more about. Go figure.......
Mine have all been in the coop so far, except for one when a buff comet came up to me in the pen and squatted down to drop one at my feet. Mine do not free range, but have a 2000 sq ft run with grass (we will see how long that will last tho). There is nothing in the pen for them to make a nest from tho. They were always hanging out under the coop, at the place where it is closest to the ground . And they did it a lot. I fenced that off, in the belief that I would have them start laying up there in the dirt, so I may have just gotten lucky and did something right. It is said that even a blind hog can find an acorn now and then.
I am wondering if some days mine are sneaking somewhere to lay. Most days we get 6 eggs, but sometimes we only get 4 or 5 and they are out most of the time as long as someone is home. They will be cooped up in their pen more this week due to necessity so I'll have to keep track and see if I need to hunt better. Why can't they just use the beautiful nests provided!!
What's funny is that considering the size and function of the hen's brains it's amazing how complex they can be at times.....ages and ages of genetic development have crafted a very clever avian behavior pattern in them.... Kinda like every time you think you have them figured out, you find out that you haven't got them figured out..... Come to think of it, women are like that.... (duck Koi, you're in trouble now!!)
