Hiding Eggs

It seems that my little bantam hen has gotten a bit eggcited about Easter approaching . . all the stories about egg hunts, the Easter bunny, and Easter candy have her wanting to hide her eggs.

Last week I noticed I wasn’t getting an egg from her. She lays the tiny, cute little egg shown in the middle of the larger eggs, and since she’s the only bantam I have, it was easy to figure out who wasn’t laying. After a few days of not getting an egg from a hen who usually lays an egg almost every day, I decided I’d better do a little investigating . . egg hunting!

They like to hang out under this clump of trees. They must be looking for buried treasure because they’ve scratched out quite a hole there! Sure enough . . way up behind the agarita leaves, there’s an egg!

For a couple of days, I’d find an egg in this area and then . . I wasn’t seeing them and she wasn’t laying in the coop so I had to do bit more hunting.

Yes, there’s a nest, behind those darned prickly agarita! No way to get those eggs without getting poked and scraped.

From this angle, I was able to reach them with my handy little scooper. It isn’t that I cared so much about the eggs but I don’t want to leave any “bait” around to entice critters to be looking for my chickens. If you notice, the little bantam somehow enticed a full sized hen to lay an egg in her nest.

All the other chickens were out watching me trying to pick up the eggs but the one who started the whole fiasco was busy getting herself into the coop so I wouldn’t think she’s the one who did it! I guess she hasn’t noticed she’s the only little chicken who lays little eggs in the whole bunch!

The other chickens came over to her and it was like they were saying . . we told you that wasn’t a good idea!

Seven eggs were retrieved and I’m betting she finds another hiding place now that I’ve figured out where this one is. It gives me hope that she is beginning to want to nest. What I may do is leave them all in the pen for a few days and let her get together a clutch of eggs and start sitting on them inside the coop. Maybe then I’ll move her over to the other side of that coop so she won’t be tempted to abandon the nest when the other chickens go outside.

Every evening she goes into the coop with the rest of the chickens so with our temps being in the upper 20’s or low 30’s at night, there’s no way those eggs would ever hatch even if she decided to stay on the nest, and I don’t want her out at night by herself. Also, I’ll slip most of the bantam eggs out and put full size eggs under her and . . I won’t have to buy any chickens and I can hopefully get a couple more laying hens!

It was funny because once I walked away with the eggs, all the chickens ran over to the nest to see if I had found the eggs. Yep, busted! They’re funny creatures.