The egg squat!!! Yea!!!!!

Eggs will be coming soon! Congrats!

 

Yay!! My Black Australorp, Georgette, started doing the egg squat about two weeks ago. I got my first egg from her last Saturday!

 

I have had 7 girls squatting for almost a month, with only 3 of them laying.... I wish the others would get busy....

 

Won't be long now! My girls started to lay about 2 weeks after first squatting. You're going to have eggs! you're going to have eggs!

 

Oh, I know how excited you are! 2 of my girls started squatting a couple weeks ago. A couple days ago I discovered where one of them had been wondering off to (which was just a few feet from the coop but well hidden) and discovered 7 eggs.

The first squat I saw made me squeal. Now I just love walking up to them to pet them just to watch them squat.

I'm so excited for you!

 

I love it when they do the squat... when I was little, I always thought that they did it to let us pick them up. I kinda chuckled when, as an adult doing research, I found out that it has nothing to do with letting a bunch of kids pick them up How exciting though!

 

Slightly off topic, but does anyone think the chickens are stressed when they do the squat? One of mine actually stomps her feet back and forth, and pulls her wings back where her elbows are on top of her back. I can't help but think the poor gal is scared. (I have 2 doing the squat; one of them laying, and it's the one that's not laying that stomps her feet and pins her wings back.) I love petting them, but am I stressing them out?

 

What is the egg squat? Of my four birds I have three adults who were laying eggs before I got them and one pullet that probally won't lay till March.

 

The egg squat is were the girls squat down, but remain standing and hold their wings out just a bit. Its actually an act of submission that lets the roosters know they can be mounted. I imagine the holding out of the wings is to help support the rooster. Basically, they are horny. The reason squatting is an indication of egg production soon to start is the females are ready to have the eggs fertilized before they start laying. Why they squat for humans, idk. Maybe when you're a creature that has such a high production rate, its about the eggs getting fertilized and not what's fertilizing. It might seem normal seeing your girls were already laying, but when you approach them they stop in their tracks and do the squat once you get close, well, that's the egg squat.