Marion’s Secret
January 30th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Since egg number one arrived two weeks ago, Heath and I have been checking the chicken coop routinely for new eggs, finding roughly one every 4 days or so. While we were THRILLED with the recent egg production, we were a little bummed she wasn’t yielding more. We had heard that a healthy chicken can produce one egg every day, so we got to work making sure our chicken was as happy as possible:
- We covered their sleeping shelter with a blanket to keep them warm at night
- We let them roam the yard throughout the day to scratch for bugs
- We check on their food and water supply every day, changing it out more frequently.
Still, we weren’t seeing the results we wanted until today, when realized an incredible truth…Marion has been laying decoy eggs in the chicken house to protect the real batch she has been tending to in a sheltered corner of the yard.
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All along she has been secretly nesting! Heath and I were so excited; we may have a whole batch of baby chicks soon! There is much research to be done to figure out how best to care for these little babies (we assume them to be hatchable since Ruby is a rooster), but we are optimistic that we will have at least a few little chicks in the coming weeks.
[...] not in the coop; although it’s possible she could have stashed them somewhere in the yard as she is known to do. If she did take a vacation from laying, I can’t blame her. It’s too hot outside to do [...]