A Budding Farmer Uncovers a Bounty

There is nothing like hearing “Hey Guys!” from the top of the steps in the morning followed by the pitter patter of little feet :). That was our weekend at the farm with a very special little house guest – our Grandson.


We had tractor rides…

And he helped us gather eggs in the morning…

In fact, he and his Daddy helped us find lots and lots of eggs we didn’t know we had... While chillin on the back patio on Sunday, they just happened to notice that our Silver Laced Wyandotte, Raider, was nestled in our ivy bed by the smokehouse. At first, I didn’t think much of it. They like to come up into the back yard and they often peck around the ivy bed. But then as I got closer, I noticed that she seemed to be particularly nestled down. I gently got her to scoot and sure enough, that little stinker was sitting on 15 eggs! This made sense to my husband and I because a week ago our egg production appeared to be way down. We normally get 4 to 7 eggs a day and we were down to 1 or 2 and sometimes none for a few days. So this was where all the eggs were going…

As you can kind of see, they all look remarkably similar – like they were laid by the same hen. So we surmised that she was getting broody and had picked the ivy bed for nesting. However, this was problematic. First of all, we know that we’ve seen her out and about in the paddock. We would have definitely noticed had she been sitting on the eggs in the ivy bed and not moving. When our Black Australorp got broody she did not budge. Then again, she had gotten broody in the hen house and we were able to accommodate her and feed her. This one was routinely getting up and who knew how much time she was spending actually sitting on the eggs? Certainly we know that at night, the eggs were left alone as we shut our flock inside the hen house every night to protect them.

So we decided to (carefully) move the eggs into the crate in the hen house where our last broody Miss had sat. Once we had them all moved, we then chased Raider into the house and got her to go into the crate and notice the eggs (this would be the second time that weekend that our Grandson saw Grandad and GiGi chasing chickens which I’m sure was pretty entertaining :).

Alas, she didn’t take. Shortly after she was out and about by the garden. We certainly can’t eat these eggs and if she doesn’t take to sitting on them, I guess we are going to have to try and hatch them ourselves (artificially) or just dispose of them. If any more experienced farmers have some advice for us, please let me know. I’m going to consult a few and see what our best options are.

So it was an exciting end to a wonderful weekend and the other thing that Grandad and GiGi loved hearing was “But I don’t want to go…” :). We miss him already!