Before work this morning I checked in the run for more eggs and another egg had been laid outside in the run. The egg was in a similar place to last time and was also cracked. I think whoever is laying there likes to lay on the wooden platform that I put in. I might have to have a move around in the run after work today and see if removing the platform will discourage them from laying there…
Another Egg in the Run
June 16th, 2009 .Egg Troubles
June 15th, 2009 .Yesterday, when I opened the coop up to clean this is what I saw:
Soft Shelled Eggs
I had a few soft shelled eggs when the girls first started laying but I thought that was the end of it. Today when I managed to drag myself out of bed my girlfriend told me that there was an egg in the run. I managed to get it out of the run without letting the birds escape but it was already cracked. Then when I got home from work today there was only 1 egg in the nest box and that was cracked too! Today wasn’t a good day for eggs!
I have no idea why this egg was laid here...
This egg was laid in the right place but had a thin shell and was cracked
I am wondering if they have a calcium deficiency – I put some grit with oyster shell down in the run so hopefully that will do the trick. I’m not convinced though as they have had access to grit since I first got them.
Good News and Bad News
May 12th, 2009 .The Good News
Yesterday I got an odd egg in the nest area. It was rough and had lots of red/brown speckles on it – I though it might be Daisy’s first egg.
Is this Daisy's first egg?
This morning when I let the chickens out there was already a cracked egg in the run (I wrote about it in my previous post) so when I came back at lunch time to see this I was pleasantly surprised:
Eggs in the nest area
It looks like the nest is working and the egg on the right it the biggest one I have had so far!
The Bad News
After I cleaned out the chickens today, I was doing a bit of gardening when I heard a flapping of wings. I looked round and Victoria had managed to fly over the netting that I put up yesterday. I chased her around the garden for a bit until I finally managed to catch her and put her back over the other side. As I was putting her over, I leaned on the netting and the string snapped! Well that lasted a long time!
I blame Victoria!
I took down the netting and decided to think out a way to improve it. I decided that the next attempt would need a stronger chord, and would need to be higher off of the ground, so I got out my drill and some bits of wood and this is what I came up with:
Version 2 of my net fence
This is much better than what I did last time – the rope is a lot stronger and the fence is a bit higher. It looks like the rope is not tight enough but this is as tight as I can get it. The reason that it sags is that the netting is pegged tightly into the ground and is pulling down on the rope. If I tightened it any more I think the wood would snap!
The other advantage to the new setup is that it is easier for me to get in and out. Where the netting attaches onto the coop, I have purposefully left the bottom quite loose – instead of being pegged into the ground it is attached to the coop about 1 foot off of the ground. This means that when I move the flower pots off of the bottom of the net I can just about squeeze under it without having to lay face down in chicken poop.
More Cracked Eggs
May 12th, 2009 .When I let the girls out this morning there was another egg on the coop floor with cracks on it. This time Victoria had laid it in the opposite corner of the hen house – I think this is because she laid it before I let the girls out and there wasn’t enough space for her to get to the nest. I am seriously considering buying an automatic pop-hole opener. Either that or I will need to start setting my alarm for 4:30am!
Frustrating
May 8th, 2009 .I have had an egg each day off of two of my girls – the brown one and the grey one. The sad thing is that all of the eggs laid by my grey one have been wasted. She either drops the eggs on the coop floor or lays soft shelled eggs. It’s starting to get a bit frustrating now…
Yesterdays egg cracked when it hit the floor
Today's egg had a soft shell