…when you drop a big rock on them.
I’ve noticed that new laying hens don’t get the concept of ‘nesting box’ right away. They tend to just drop their eggs wherever they happen to be when the strange sensation catches up to them*.
Consequently, as soon as I found the first of the pullets’ new eggs, I went all around the chicken house and yard to discover where else they were dropping them. And it turns out one of them wasn’t being so accidental after all, because this morning for the second time I found an egg in a neatly hollowed-out space in a nearly inaccessible (to me) corner of the chicken house. So I strained in, grabbed the egg, then I went outside and got a big, heavy rock. Which now rests in that corner. I’m a meany.
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* Chickens have been domesticated and selectively bred so thoroughly for so long that they literally can’t reproduce without human intervention. A hen who actually tries to hatch eggs is a rare genetic throwback – and she’ll just as happily try to hatch golf balls.
The very best hens to brood eggs is a Banty. Yes, they would try to hatch golf balls, but mine happily hatched out regular chickens, ducks, even a goose egg once. The Bantys aren’t big, so three or four regular hen’s eggs or ONE goose egg is all they can handle. I stuck a goose egg under one hen just once, to see what would happen. I tried breeding the Banty hens with regular chicken roosters… but she always beat the snot out of him… 🙂 They are feisty little monsters. LOL
For a moment there when I read the title of the post and found the post was about the hens, I thought… Good that it turned out well.
I’ll be anxious to hear a followup and see if the girl is trying to hatch that rock. 😉
🙂 She’ll have to pound down the steroids before she can try that trick, CH. It’s almost three times as big as she is.