Missing eggs?

Friday, April 22, 2011
Flo is a serious egg layer. She gives us a fresh egg about 6 days a week. The last egg we found of hers was over a week ago.


I came out to collect the eggs early last week and found Flo in the nesting box on top of Lucy. Don't ask me why, but chickens generally like to lay only where the other chickens have laid. Even with 6 perfectly clean and soft nesting boxes, the girls will only lay in the box on the left.


Usually Flo stands in front of the box and squawks at Lucy while she is laying so I was surprised to see her in the box on top of her. Flo is a pretty big bird so I tried to move her to the next box over but she popped right out and jumped back on top of Lucy.


Look how miserable poor Lucy was. I stayed to make sure that she was okay and not being suffocated by old Flo. Once Flo popped her egg out (narrowly missing Lucy's head), she left the box leaving Lucy to lay in peace. As I said, this was over a week ago and that was the last egg we've seen of Flo's. I'm not sure if she's just stopped laying for some reason or if she's found a new place to lay.


Since it's been warming up out here, the girls have been spending most of their time in a shade structure my husband has on the side of our house. It is soft and lush with dichondra and long grass. It's also filled with ladders, coils of wire, and tons of other stuff. I have a feeling she might be laying somewhere in there but I have no clue where. I can't find her eggs anywhere and it's making me crazy.


Hopefully she just needed a break and will either start laying again or we'll find her hidden stash somewhere. Of our 3 chickens, we're only getting eggs from Lucy right now (Effie hasn't laid since she molted in the fall). I really don't want to go buy eggs since that is one of the main reasons we have chickens.  I'm secretly hoping that the kids will find her eggs during our Easter egg hunt this Sunday.

ETA: We have found the missing eggs. It seems old Flo thought the compost pile was a better place to lay than the nesting boxes in the coop.


I've got to figure out how to get her to start laying in the coop again. Those eggs will bake in a matter of minutes if she keeps it up in the summer. Silly chicken.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is hilarious!

Anonymous said...

so if the girls all lay their eggs in the same nest, how do you know which one is doing the laying?

Grace said...

Ninali, the chickens lay different colored eggs. Effie (who isn't laying right now) lays blue eggs, Lucy lays green eggs, and Flo lays brown eggs. :)

Anonymous said...

Aha...well there you go. I didn't realize you had chicken that all laid different colors :)

Sherri said...

Grace - my friend Erin lives in central Cali and has chickens (and goats now too!). I wonder if she might know how to get that to happen?

Grace said...

Thanks, Sherri. My husband temporarily closed off the compost pile so that the chickens couldn't again. After a day, Flo was back to laying in the coop (thank goodness)! Jealous that your friend has goats...that might be our next adventure.

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