The "I laid an egg" announcement

[lilstar]

I've heard that hens make a certain cluck when they lay an egg.. so I just searched an audio clip. Oh yeah.. thats a familiar sound Was making it right outside my window the other morning when I was trying to sleep. Trying to tell me breakfast is ready? hehe. So, my hens (hen?) only lays where they (she?) feel like it. Only one is laying right now, that I know for sure. Sometimes in the coop, sometimes in a hiding spot in the yard (and if I can get our pen escape proofed and fit the nesting boxes in the coop, then hopefully they're lay where they're supposed to! The nesting boxes we got didn't fit.. argh.) So I'm constantly paranoid that there is some other egg laying spot that the others lay and I just haven't found it yet Could that distinctive cluck lead me to an egg? Do they ever make that sound when they are not announcing their egg, just, you know, because they feel like making lots of noise outside my window way too early in the morning? Because the morning when I looked out my window when I wasn't ready to get up to see which hen was making that racket and whyyyyy.. it was not the one known to be currently laying, and it was nowhere near a known "egg laying" spot. Did she lay and I have a hunt to go on, or was she just making a nuisance of herself?

 

[mkcolls]

LOL Could be either one. Our pullets learned the "egg song" before they were actually laying. We have several choir directors, and several very loud soloists. They not only sing when they have laid an egg, they sing for everyone else. We have coops at opposite sides of our barn and they have sing offs. The loudest one wins. And practice makes perfect.

They also will consistently lay in one spot for weeks, then decide they need to lay somewhere else - so let the egg hunt begin. We have hens that occasionally lay outside, but just to freak us out, our guineas lay in the barn. Go figure!!

 

[lilstar]

I just did a search of the vicinity of her little solo yesterday..nothin. But I did find an egg in the coop today that is a different color than the ones we usually get with a smear of blood on it! So I'm thinking that was someone's first egg, and I suspect Sunny!! Will have to make sure that egg becomes "sunny side up" in her honor It looks like an Ameraucana egg, and she's our only full. The rest are mutts. Our other eggs have all consistently been an olive green, (ameraucana/barred rock) and this egg was much lighter without any brown to the color.

 

[CSWolffe]

I have one hen who sings a few minutes after she lays, almost as an after thought, one hen who sings for half an hour before she lays, and my third sings not only while she lays, but while any of the other two are in the box.
They each have their own personalities, and sing when they want, so the song is not really an indication of when, or where, they lay.