Three broodies and today’s allotment harvest

Smoke has now been broody for nine days. Sugar has been broody for five days and Ebony went broody three days ago. It’s getting ridiculous!

I go up to see only half the flock in the run and if a girl is laying even less girls out. The nest boxes are clogged up making it awkward when a girl wants to lay.

I just can’t manage with three girls broody at once so decided I need to break them out of it.

I decided to start with Sugar because she is the easiest and three nights in the broody crate is enough to break her out of it. She had her first night in the broody crate last night.

This morning it was obvious that Flame wanted to lay. She didn’t lay yesterday so was ready for a morning egg. Flame always makes a mournful sound when she wants to lay so it’s really easy to tell. I put Sugar back in the broody crate and opened up the nest boxes.

I decided to put Smoke in with Ebony to leave another nest box empty for Flame. When I returned to check on them this is what I found.

Flame is the girl most happy to share a nest box and she wasn’t put off by there being two girls in there already. Flame soon laid her egg and I closed the nest boxes once more and returned Sugar to the run.

We then went up to the allotments to pick some produce for our Sunday dinner. There is an abundance of produce at the moment.

The amount we picked has made little impression on the amount of produce still to be picked. We are sharing our harvest with our neighbours and will message our allotment sharers to go and pick too.

It is that time of year when everything comes faster than we can keep up with. I don’t like rhubarb myself but we pick it and pass it round the neighbours as it needs to be picked. Luckily our neighbours are happy to receive produce.