This and that and a bit of everything

I planted some savoy cabbages at the allotment late last summer as they were reduced to a pound to get rid of them. I thought it was probably too late for them to come to anything and it was. They didn’t heart up and ended up getting a bit eaten by caterpillars.

However my husband bought them home last week for the girls. I gave them a couple each day and they loved them. They stripped them until there were just stalks left by the end of the day.

Marmite has now laid six eggs this year. From the first one she has settled on top of the nest box instead of inside it. I have blocked the gap between the store cabinet and the nest box, with my box of disposable gloves, just in case she lays here so that her egg wouldn’t roll down the back and break.

For the first three of Marmite’s eggs I ended up shutting Marmite in the nest box in the hope that it would help her get the right idea. After that I decided to leave her to it as I don’t want to have to do this every time. To my surprise she laid the next three eggs in the nest box.

It seems that Marmite has developed a habit of sitting on the nest box until she is ready to lay and then she moves into the nest box to lay her egg. I am pleased that she is laying in the nest box but I can’t imagine why she has to sit on top of it for a while first.

Who knows what goes on inside that little bird brain! I am not going to worry about it now that I know she will go inside to lay. I shall just leave her to do as she wishes.

Then the next odd thing happened. Yesterday morning when I cleaned the chicken shed I found a tiny egg. It was just like the first eggs that these little girls laid at the very start of egg laying. It was really surprising as Salmon, Spangle and Marmite have already started laying.

I can only wonder if it belongs to Smoke as she hasn’t been laying since going broody. Smoke was broody for two weeks and it’s now been a further week since she came out of broodiness so I would be expecting her to start laying again soon. This has never happened after being broody before though. It is most odd and I guess I can never be certain which girl laid it.

This is a mystery. It will be interesting to see if Smoke lays over the next few days. If not I have no explanation for this.

And in other news Ebony has laid an egg after a month’s break. Hopefully this means she is back laying again. It seems that she started a month earlier than Flame and then took a month off to catch up.

Whatever the reason it will be good to have two bigger girls laying. The boost in eggs means that I no longer need to buy any eggs. At the moment there are enough eggs for breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays and one mid week breakfast too. Hurrah!