Friday, September 16, 2011

Sneaky sneaky chickens

Little Goldy, cornered outside the pen. Dunderhead the rooster looks on, waiting to attack me for daring to harass one of his ladies.

So, we have two habitual escapees. An ameraucana and a maran. They jump the fence (4' netting, with both their wings clipped). The maran isn't as graceful as my little goldy ameraucana, and often fails to completely clear the fence... Her feet catch, and she somersaults over... And lands on her head. One big ball of feathery coordination.

One of the buffs likes to lay an egg each day under the ferns in their pen, instead of the nest boxes. So, we figured it might be a good idea to look around and see whether the escapees were doing the same. Oh yeah. They were. We found the ameraucana nest, with two pretty little green eggs in it. The maran nest was well hidden under ferns and blackberries. It is pretty deep, and she'd taken the time to line it with feathers and leaves. In her nest, we found a DOZEN eggs. I think she knew we'd found her secret hidey hole, because today, her egg was way on the other side of the yard... In the ameraucana's nest. :) Sneaky sneaky chicken...

The maran's nest

6 comments:

Mike said...

Never a dull moment, huh?

Paula said...

It's the ferns, you see. Chickens are descended from jungle fowl, as we all know, so I'd wager the ferns woke up some ancient instinct because they look pretty jungly.

Obviously she wants to brood. Do you think you'll want to raise chicks? I know someone who could use some pullets. Real pullets, not undetected cockerels, that is.....

kpannabecker and jpannabecker said...

I hate when they hide their eggs. Why can't they lay in the perfectly good nests we give them? They seem so convenient.

Rae said...

Paula, if one of the girls goes broody next spring, we may let her try it out. I'm kinda curious how an ameraucana/welsummer, or maran/welsummer would turn out. This all depends on whether Dunderhead continues to respect the stick... Lol.

LindaG said...

Wow. Tricky chickens, indeed. :)

Lana from Farm Life lessons said...

This is hysterical. Chickens can be pretty stealth-like. Sounds like you have a couple of 007 chickens!