A water drinking problem and an egg laying problem

Yesterday I separated the three girls before lunch. They went straight to the water and had a huge drinking session then went to the pellets. I worry about them not getting water so I decided to put water bottles above each of the ladders. At least this will mean they can get to water at any time and then to food when I supervise.

The three girls sprint to the water

All three have a good drink

Next the three girls head to the pellets

Apricot has a peck at the apple

I show Dandelion and Cinnamon one of the water bottles

I show Apricot the other water bottle

I tried to show them how to get the water but they didn’t get it.

Rusty shows them how it’s done

Rusty hadn’t forgotten the water bottle though.

After Rusty had shown them how it was done I put Apricot by the bottle and tapped the nozzle. Apricot had some water. She is always the first of the three to cotton on to anything new. I am sure the other two will soon get the hang of it. This is one problem solved for now.

Freckles usually lays two days out of three. A couple of days ago I noticed that she wasn’t herself. She didn’t run to the seeds in the morning and spent a lot of the day perched in the corner of the run. She hadn’t laid for a couple of days and I recognised this behaviour. I knew she was having an egg laying problem and possibly had a soft shelled egg coming. I managed to persuade her to eat a little mash.

Yesterday morning she went to the nest box and stayed in there most of the day.

Poor Freckles

She is trying so hard to get her egg laid

I was wishing that I could help her

I hated seeing her like this and felt so helpless. She was making little whimpering noises and it was obvious that she was really struggling to get her egg out. She was raising her tail with the effort. I felt so worried for her.

At half past three Freckles abandoned the nest box with no egg laid. She went to sit in the sun then had some food and water.

I know from past experience (Amber) that it sometimes takes two days to get a soft shelled egg laid.

While all this had been going on Rusty had been very vocal and had been going in and out of the nest box on and off all day but I didn’t manage to get a photo of her in there.

At half past seven we went out to check on the girls. They were all in the shed, on their perches, except Freckles. I had forgotten to close the nest boxes and Freckles was back in the nest box again. I lifted her out and under her was a tiny egg. It was so small that it almost fell through the hole of the egg stand when I took it indoors.

I put Freckles on her perch and twice she jumped down and went back in to the nest box. I then put her on her perch and closed the pop hole. When it was a bit darker I opened it again and Freckles was still on her perch.

Now we had a puzzle. Was this tiny egg Rusty’s first egg? It seemed odd that after struggling all day to lay that Freckles would then lay a hard shelled and tiny egg and still keep returning to the nest box. It is possible that Rusty went in and laid it while I was indoors but it is unusual for a first egg to be laid quickly. They usually take ages and lots of practice to get the first egg laid.

I went out first thing this morning and Freckles was already in the nest box with her tail raised again.

Freckles is back in the nest box with Rusty watching on

Peaches egg is on the left, Freckles previous egg in the middle and the mystery egg is on the right

By the time my husband got back at midday today Freckles was back out in the run and having a dust bath. She hasn’t returned to the nest box and looks back to normal, having another dust bath late in the afternoon. At five o’clock she is still out in the run so my conclusion is that she finally laid her egg last night but didn’t realise she had laid it. This often happens when they take a long time to lay.

I am just glad to have her back to normal again. There is never a dull moment with these girls.