They don’t like it as much as the other nest boxes, but I found a chicken in the metal nest box! And she laid an egg there! Cleaning and painting it was not a wasted effort, yay! Granted, their two favorite nest boxes were both occupied.
I spy a chicken!
I have been putting down plastic bins everywhere I find an egg on the floor. We are up to 6 nest boxes. For 12 chickens. A little overkill, but they fight over the two boxes under the workbench. Here is a video: https://youtu.be/6hDRHzRU3fQ. I thought Velociraptors were eating my chickens; no, it was just a hen screaming at another hen coming toward her nest box.
Holy smokes are the egg shells strong on the eggs coming out of my chickens! The chickens apparently think the whole coop is a safe place, and I find eggs everywhere. I found one with the sole of my foot. Yikes! What was amazing is that it didn’t break. I didn’t put my full weight on it, but I did feel it through my shoe.
I also scared Sunrise off the nest when the egg was out, but still stuck to her tail feathers (she did not appreciate me recording video (click here to see video) with a bright light while she was busy!) The egg fell from her feathers as she left the nest and fell over 18” to the floor below. Of course the pine shavings had been carefully shoved away from that spot, so the egg hit the plywood floor and the shell broke, but the shell membrane stayed intact! Whoa. I did then have egg drop soup for lunch. It seemed appropriate.
The egg I found with my foot (bottom) and the egg that dropped from Sunrise’s bum (top)
I’ve had a bit of a learning curve cracking open the eggs as well. I’ve found that I need to consciously pierce the shell membrane after I crack the egg or I have a terrible time with shell bits in my breakfast. Store bought eggs pour out of the shell as soon as it is cracked. Not so with these!
As much as I like matching Pantone colors to egg colors, it is an unwieldy process and not kid friendly. My Mom mentioned that she took a picture of her chicken’s eggs and compared color to the picture. So I took a picture of the eggs I have, arranged by color intensity, and started at 5 so I have room on the index for lighter colors (just in case). Since my youngest has decided to check for eggs everyday (yay!), this makes it easier for her to help with egg color. It is also easier to tell at a glance at the record which eggs were darker or lighter. We are currently recording date, weight, color, time gathered, and where the egg was found.
I was recording egg color along with egg weight in a notebook as we collect eggs, but they were relative colors: light brown, medium, brown, dark brown. It bothered me that without a reference, I couldn’t tell what I called “dark” the day before. And “dark” certainly isn’t a universal application because there are chicken breeds that lay much darker brown eggs. So I pulled out an old Pantone color book and am now comparing color to the Pantone standard. It means I write down things like 16-1331, but I am hoping to see a correlation between the color of egg laid and which chicken laid it. (I’m still working on how to figure out that last part.)
Using Pantone colors to match egg color
I tried hanging out in the coop for awhile. Cloud got upset and was yelling at me and decided to perch on my shoulder, then when I got her down and I left the coop, she went into the nest box! So I waited, and waited, and finally got sick of waiting and puttered around the yard (I don’t sit still well for long). I went back to check on her, and it looked like she was sleeping in the nest box. Alrighty then.
Cloud sleeping in a nest box?
I am not waiting around for chicken naps. I did collect an egg from that box an hour or so later when the other chickens alarmed at something (or maybe it was the egg song, not sure on the subtleties of that yet). I am assuming it was Cloud’s egg. It was a different color than all the previous eggs. Maybe an individual chicken can lay different shades? Oh well, it is still fun to color match.
I think I am seeing the result of getting Faverolle pullets from a hatchery. I lucked out that all my chickens have the Faverolle beards and muffs, but Faverolles are supposed to lay slightly tinted pink eggs. These are brown eggs. I compared them to pictures from the Faverolles Chicken Club, and mine are definitely darker, especially the one in the lower right of the picture. That said, these are also from the girls who are laying three months earlier than I expected. I guess we’ll see what coloration we get as the others start laying! The eggs definitely taste fine, and we now sometimes get three a day.
Navi update: Navi has been released from a week of isolation (so she only had access to copper sulfate water and food). Her crop is no longer squishy and has reduced dramatically in size. There is still something in her crop in the morning, but she is eating well and her droppings have returned to normal, so I figured she could use some exercise. What she really wanted was a good dust bath. On another update, the tire dust bath has now been accepted by the flock. Hurray!
Navi checking out the nest box that was added since she went into isolation The dust bath finally getting used!
Critters and Craft 