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| Uh, that’s not the nesting box… |
There are a lot of cool things about having a backyard chicken flock–they eat a lot of annoying bugs, they’re hilarious when they run, they consume our food scraps and turn it into fertilizer for the garden, and they aerate the soil with their incessant scratching. Oh, they lay eggs. The problem with not keeping them locked up all the time? They don’t always lay eggs where anyone is going to actually find them. 😅
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| Someone forgot to put the grain bin lid on and…you guessed it. Apparently, it was a comfortable nest. |
We work really hard to keep our animals as comfortable as an animal cares to be. They have access to fresh food and water, have clean bedding, plenty of roosts, and lots of space in the nesting box, lined with hay we’ve swept up from the horses. Still, chickens aren’t exactly the smartest creatures I’ve ever encountered.
Part of the problem is the chickens live in the barn and have a neverending supply of hay. We don’t purposefully leave it lying around, but there seems to always be a pile of loose wisps of hay the wind has blown into the corner. Which must be confusing for the hens, because we find a lot of clutches in the scattered remnants of hay.
The clutches I don’t understand are laid on anything BUT soft, downy feathers and hay. Rocks. Really?
Or better yet, the trash? SERIOUSLY? I guess it’s sort of comfortable and out of the way of everyone else. From what I can tell, it was just one hen who thought the trash can was ideal.
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| Once we find a hen, we know where the eggs are going to be, at least for a few days. |
With all the egg hunting we do, especially as spring starts warming up and the hens get back to fervently laying and are trying to remember where they should be depositing their eggs, it’s good practice for Easter egg hunting. So, there’s that.
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| Sometimes, they DO go where they’re supposed to. |
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| Bring on the eggs! |
