Ebony’s third egg

Thank goodness the game girls are laying their eggs on alternate days or I don’t know how we would cope.

On the first day that Ebony laid she had been stressing for quite some time so I think that when I put the nest box in the run with a pile of straw in it she was so desperate that she went straight in and laid her egg.

The next time she was ready to lay she was behaving in the same manner and I herded her into the chicken shed and shut her in. She settled in the corner and laid her egg. I thought that this would mean she would now know that she could either lay in the nest box or the shed.

But no! On the third day that she wanted to lay she would stand outside the nest boxes and shout her head off. My goodness she was loud, louder than a cockerel. It was Saturday and sunny and we started to worry about the neighbours. Even if they weren’t in the garden they would have their windows open and we could hear her from indoors.

I had to resort to shutting her in the shed again where she settled and got her egg laid.

I have been thinking of what made their previous nest boxes different from ours. At first I thought it was that they were used to straw. I then thought that they liked deep nests. I then realised that it was probably the height of the nest box position.

At the farm they were in a barn. There was a wooden shelf at about table height with a row of wooden nest boxes on it. We decided to try putting one of the nest boxes on top of the wooden shelter.

We need to solve this problem because we can’t always be here to watch over them and we can’t have this amount of disruption every day. We have to keep trying different things until we find a nest box that they are happy to use.

New nest box position

It will now be a matter of waiting to see if this works. I really hope so.

Meanwhile I was surprised to find the chicks on top of the other shelter for the first time.

The chicks are on top of the shelter

How did they get up here!

I was surprised that they could get up there. In the meantime both Ebony and Flame have investigated the new nest box position so I am hopeful that this may work. At least they know where it is. Time will tell.