An Egg eating chicken, the scourge of a backyard flock!

Continued from craft-a-thon.....

As you know, I left Bruce in charge of my animal chores when I left for my sister's house. I do his chores every so often but he seldom does mine. He kept asking me in the days before what he needed to do and I kept telling him to just do chores with me Friday morning. That should have been the clue.

I tend to go over board on chore instructions, ask my brother in law, Foof, about the time he did chores when we were gone. Bruce's chore list was on a small tablet, mine was a page and a half of notebook paper.

"Now these horses go in the barn and get their breakfast, while these are outside and when everyone has eaten, then open all the doors.......the chickens need feed and sunflower seeds, don't forget to refill the water bowl.....the dogs and cats all have food, don't forget their water......"

I'm sure Bruce's eyes were rolling back in his head while he was thinking, "I'm positive I can keep them all alive for 24 hours!"

I told him the most important job I was entrusting to him was to get us an egg that day, not an easy job since I have discovered I have an egg eating hen in the coop. She has discovered that a pullet is laying in the pet carrier on the apartment floor, and got two eggs that week.

So I told him I was going to drape a gunny sack over the carrier and leave the door open to the apartment just wide enough for the hen to get through, hoping that would keep it dark and inconspicuous and avoid another catastrophe.

While I was gone, I wondered how Bruce was getting along, I knew he wouldn't go check as often as I do but was hoping he would be successful. When I got home Saturday and asked if he found an egg, he said no. I went out to the coop and found the apartment door was completely shut but, to my surprise, I found a lovely blue egg in one of the nests! YES!

That is where they are supposed to lay anyway and when she couldn't get to her old one, she decided to use the nest box. So I locked the apartment door and she has laid an egg every day since, always choosing the same nest. Today I watched her try out 2 others but this one must be 'just right.' This has also stopped the egg eater, the nest on the floor was just too tempting.

  

Bruce did such a good job that I will leave them all in his capable hands next month when the garden club ladies hit the road on a junking trip. As if we didn't have enough in our outbuildings and basement, come on, fess up!

And he has his buddy, Bruiser La'Rue to keep him company while doing the rounds.