Surprise under A-Frame door

I’ve had the children feeding the hens the last couple of days, or the last few or more … it’s now Thursday and I can’t quite recall :rolleyes:

In any case I do think it was just a few days ago when I was out there and checked for eggs and helped Russell water the hens … but since I can’t relate it to a particular day, I’m not certain of the last time I checked for eggs. In any case, I just so happened to go out earlier because we have had some wind gusts, so I had to get the Leghorns roof weighted down, it was flapping, being metal roofing that’s not secured permanently. Last time we had big weather of course it was weighted down well, but with Frank gone last week, and the weather nice and mild, I had to remove that stuff to move the pen a bit myself.

So that was earlier today when I went out. But it was so gusty and chilly, therefore, that I went right back in after fixing the top of the SuperYard. Frank went out as I was going in, so I think he rearranged some things. Later I heard more flapping of the roof and saw the configuration of the stuff on top of the pen not satisfactorily placed. I don’t know if it was Frank that moved them, or the wind, but I had to go out and re-do the placing of the things, to keep the top from flapping up and down, which could effectively end up moving the whole roof off the pen, or allow a hen or more to escape.

So I did that, and traversed back to the house, detouring to the A-frame for a bit of shelter from the suddenly more chilly and very gusty wind at that moment. I looked inside at them and they were looking fine, those W’s and A’s. Then I opened the egg nest door, expecting to see poop and nothing else, and the door stuck a bit [it rained yesterday] so when it finally opened I wasn’t looking right in, and so I was more surprised when I finally looked. Seven brown eggs were lying there on the wooden shelf.

Wow!

I cannot tell how long they were there, one for sure looked clean and not as chilled, at least 4 were pretty dirty. So that tells me one or two from today, and maybe some or all from yesterday or the day before … or earlier.

2 of the eggs are fairly dark, the darkest of the group. 2 eggs are very pale brown, the lightest of the group. I can safely say that most likely those are from the same hen, respectively –one light, one dark. So that could be one Australorp, the light, and a Wyandotte, the dark. Maybe.

The 3 remaining eggs look between the other 4 in shading. 2 are nearly the same, the third is close, but not as similar.

So however it is, I know I was looking at the hens some time in the last week and really thinking that some of those hens had super red combs and wattles. But we had no eggs being layed. So now we do. So now I need to go out more frequently and check for eggs, and also come up with a better way to keep straw/hay in that nest box. 🙂