When I left the barn last night Georgia was still on her nest, apparently trying to lay an egg. When got in the barn today she was still there. I was concerned she might be egg bound. Picked her up and felt her abdomen, but didn’t feel any thing. Put her down on the floor and shooed her outside for some air. A few minutes later she came back in the barn and flapped back up to her nest. I took her out and put her in front of the food tray. She ate a little, then headed back to her nest. Three times I had to remove her from the nest. And several times I caught her headed there and shooed her away. I don’t get it. I removed the egg she had laid, but there is still a plastic egg in there. I have fake eggs in several nesting spots to encourage the hens to use them. I’m wondering, is it possible Georgia is broody? Does she think the plastic egg is hers? Is she trying to hatch it? We don’t have a rooster. Can hens get broody in the absence of a rooster? When it started to get dark out I placed her on the roost. Several times she got down and headed back toward her nest in the feed room. Finally, as the other hens were settling down for the night, she decided to stay put and go to sleep on the roost. Hopefully she will be acting normal tomorrow.
Tag: roost
SheepLadder
Georgia is using Chevy as a step ladder to get up to the roost. Chickens are not good flyers. Their roost is higher than they can hop/fly to in one shot. (I made it that way on purpose so they will be safer from any predators that might get into the barn at night.) I made a little ladder for them to use. Sometimes they use the partition on the end of the pen. My favorite move, though, is when a sheep is standing close enough and they hop/fly to the sheep’s back and from there to the roost. The sheep don’t seem to mind. In fact, I think the hens’ long, pointy toes penetrate the sheep’s thick wool to help scratch their backs. Sheep LOVE back scratches. Some of them can be quite demanding for me to scratch their backs. I just find it so funny to see them getting scratches from chickens. And the chickens treating them like convenient footstools.