The Great Egg Derby!

Inevitably, when you have hens, you wonder about their egg laying habits, and what might cause your little hen to lay an egg or not.  

With one of our little birds, little Prissy, well, I've given up the thought of Little Prissy Bird laying an egg.  She just doesn't seem the sort!  For example, if you go out in the chicken run area with a shovel, my Ruby bird will come right up to you and keep her little eyes on the dirt for movement, which, in her food-driven mind means bugs, which means, delicious treat!  Greedy also enjoys a wormy treat too!  But, against everything we know about chickens, little Prissy bird doesn't!  You might think, "Amy, Prissy bird is just shy!  She's scared of people who are like 1,000-times taller than her, especially if they are wielding a shovel."  And I thought the same thing!  So we have actually excavated a clod of dirt with a juicy worm in it, and tossed it in the direction of little Prissy bird!  She pecks at it coquettishly, then does not go in for the kill!  Little Prissy bird does like grassy and lettuce treats...could it be she's a vegetarian?  Anyway - her not eating worms probably has nothing to do with whether or not she lays an egg, but it just all seems to work together, I think.  One time we did find an egg the size of a large gumball (a sad little egg) - and I half suspected that it was the handiwork of my Prissy bird, but since then, no additional gumballs have been laid.  

Now there is Ruby bird.  When we first got her (it was a cold spring) - she produced about an egg a day.  Wow!  And from the get go, I pegged her as our champion producer.  Not so fast, though!  Recently, as the weather has gotten warmer, she's laid less eggs.  And this makes me think - why?  Once, I speculated, if it was because little Ruby bird ate TOO many worms!  On Wormy Sunday (see previous post), Ruby may have eaten close to 200 worms!  Yes, really!  Mark just kept digging, and she just kept eating!  And after that, she didn't lay an egg for about a week.  I thought, maybe my Ruby bird is constipated...which may be freaking out her laying cycles.  I brought this up to a friend, and he asked, "Wait, don't chickens eat worms naturally?"  And his comment made me think, how could a chicken eat too many worms - that's what they eat!  OK - scratch that.  I then realized that about that same time, we switched up their food from one brand to another.  Aha!  I quickly re-supplied their old food, and voila!  Little Ruby bird laid an egg the next day!  I thought I was pretty smart - but since the re-switching of their food, Ruby isn't laying an egg a day like she did...more like an egg every three days.  Hmmm...

And in the meantime, my little Greedy bird (or "Lebron", as Mark likes to call her because she's so athletic) has been laying close to an egg a day!  (BTW - you can tell because Greedy eggs are green, and Ruby eggs are light brown.)  Wow!  Why is little Greedy bird becoming so prolific?  Could it be that some birds prefer warm weather, and some birds prefer colder weather?  Could it be because one bird is getting older while the other bird is reaching egg laying prime?  Bottomline is, none of this is known to the author.  These little birds seem to have a mind of their own, and whatever they want to do, they do.  

Oh - it should be noted that while little Prissy bird doesn't "lay" eggs, she does like to sit on them.  Isn't that funny?  We keep a golf ball in their laying area as to encourage our little birds to create their own eggs.  I have spied little Prissy bird sitting in the corner over the golf ball!  It's true!  And if, when she squishes around to be more comfy, the golf ball squirts out from underneath her, she gently pushes the little golf ball back into place with her wing!  Isn't that cute?  I think in the chicken world, they call this behavior "broody", as in, likely to brood over her flock (to be).  As for me, it makes her Prissy name all the more fitting!  If you recall, the Prissy of my bird's namesake is from Looney Tunes.  And the cartoon Prissy does the exact same thing!  Prissy's always taking the other snootier hen's eggs for her own because she can't lay her own egg, and as a result, she feels like she's always on the chopping block!!  

Until next time, pray for Prissy to lay her own egg.  I know that when she does, she'll be very pleased with her pretty self.  And her mommy will throw her a big chicken-y party, full of vegetarian delights!  

PS - Camera still not fixed...so no new precious spring photos.  I'm working on it!