The Aggravating Hen Update

That little chicken! At this point, I think she’s just trying push my buttons! Several times a day I go out to check for eggs, look for snakes and I always put a handful of food in the box with the nesting hens. The good mamas rarely leave their eggs. The bad mama . . well, she’s too busy playing musical nesting boxes! The last time I had seen her she was in nest #4 with 7 eggs. I opened the lid to #4 and there was a red chicken in there. Huh?  Where’s that little black chicken? 

The red hen looked at me like “It wasn’t my idea!” and she ran off.  I counted the eggs. Not only was the little black hen gone but there were three more eggs in the box. No . . not 10 babies from that hen. We have another chicken sitting on 7 eggs. Seven is my limit. Probably at least 2 won’t hatch and 5 is more than we need when we already have too many chickens. I grabbed out the three that weren’t marked and left the 7 that she’s been sitting on a few days.

I looked farther down the nesting boxes and there she was . . all the way down on nest #8. She had accumulated three eggs. NO! I grabbed the little ball catcher (dog toy I use to reach eggs that are too far away), shooed her off the nest, with her squawking and trying to peck me, and took those eggs. I had been out there a few hours earlier and gotten all the eggs so I knew they were still good.

When I went out this morning, she was back on the 7 eggs in nest #4.

Thank goodness the other nesting hen is a good mama and doesn’t do these things. She should have eggs hatching by Tuesday. It would have been yesterday had the snake not eaten all her eggs!