Late last week, the chickens were acting weird. They were being vocal to the point where I actually went outside to see if everyone was okay. Hanky was wandering around, squawking loudly. I noticed that Crispy was sitting in the nesting box, pulling straw and shavings in towards her. Naturally, I got excited! Was she laying an egg??? I told Gus about it, but I waited for him to come home so he could check. And nope... no eggs. Bummer! But the chickens were all behaving strangely, so Egg Watch 2014 was underway!
Then, this past weekend, Gus was out cleaning the coop when he discovered a rubber egg! A rubber egg is an egg that basically only has a membrane, no shell, and is fairly common when chickens lay their very first eggs. This one had gotten stepped on and destroyed, which is why we didn't see it at first. But then, we didn't know who had laid it, or when. My first guess was Crispy, but Gus was sure that it had to be Hanky. Hanky's quite a bit older, so would be the logical choice... but my gut told me it was Crispy, since she'd been acting so strangely. Anyway, we knew someone had started laying! And while it's common for chickens to NOT lay an egg every day during the winter months, we were checking the nesting box every day. And... nothing appeared. Sadness.
Yesterday, Crispy kept getting out. She is our escape artist-- she launches herself over our temporary fencing (which we will hopefully prevent from happening after we work on it this weekend). I kept going out and putting her back in with the others. But one time, she ran away from me and zipped over to where we stack the wood for our fire pit. She hopped up on top, and that was where I cornered her. When I picked her up, I suddenly realized that there were TWO GREEN EGGS sitting on top of that wood pile! They were the prettiest mint green-- at first, I thought they were fake, or were toys or something. It didn't register that they were CRISPY'S EGGS! But then it clicked, and I yelled for the kids to come and see. We were so excited! Two fantastic eggs!!!
So then I got Niko on the bus for school, and Maya and I went to run some errands. When we came back, Crispy was out AGAIN. I went out to put her away, and noticed a THIRD EGG! I think the other eggs had been from previous days. And the poor chicken had been trying to lay her egg all morning, but I kept thwarting her efforts (they generally lay in the same place every time... so she apparently likes the wood pile). Anyway, look! Three eggs! And that first one on the left most likely has a double-yolk-- also common in young layers.
In other chicken news... We got a small package from my mom in the mail yesterday. A few weeks back, Gus had showed me a picture of a chicken wearing a winter hat, and we both thought it was hilarious. I told my mom about it, and she decided to make a chicken hat and send it to him as a surprise. So I knew what was in the envelope, but Gus and the kids didn't. We all had a good laugh when he opened it after work yesterday! And the hat was a little small, so we knew Barbie (our youngest chicken) would be the perfect model! Look-- it's a chicken wearing a hat!!! hahahahaha!!!
Sadly, our fun day was capped off with a little boy throwing up in the middle of the night... Poor thing seems to have caught the stomach bug that is apparently going around his school. So we are all staying home today, wearing our pajamas and watching "Star Wars." He hasn't thrown up since very early this morning, and is just woozy and tired today. Fingers crossed that he's back to 100% soon, and that the rest of us are spared!
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