Green Eggs and Sam

10-21-03

One of the best things about chickens is that you don't have to call them in- at sundown they just head into the coop. Sam and the girls have always done that- they run around loose just before sunset and then head into the coop to roost. Not any more. Poor Sam is just traumatized beyond hope, it seems.
Mr. G just doesn't know when to stop. He built those nice new nest boxes for the girls, but he couldn't leave it at that. He'd read somewhere that if you put fake eggs in the boxes, the hens will get the idea that they should lay eggs there. Well, Mr. G. found some old plastic Easter eggs- not nice pale ones, mind you, but bright neon green ones- that's what he put in the nest. Those chickens must not have liked that egg at all, because tonight it was buried deep in the shavings. Sam must have thought one of the girls laid it and decided he doesn't want anything to do with hens who lay neon green eggs. Tonight Sam rounded up all the girls and made them go in, but he decided to sleep outside on top of the coop. I tried to get him to go inside, but he'd have no part of it- every time I got close to him he'd fly off and dash about the yard like a lunatic, squawking his head off. So there I was, after dark, chasing a crazy rooster all over the yard with a broom and a towel. I finally got him in, but he wasn't happy about it- and that stupid neon egg is still in the coop, thanks to Mr. G., who, I have decided, has a real mean streak and a warped sense of humor...

postscript: Evidently Mr. G was onto something, because shortly after the neon egg episode, Emily began laying. And she was trying her darndest to lay green eggs! Her eggs weren't bright green, but were a lovely shade of blue-green. She laid one a day for three or four days, then took a break and Monique and Henrietta picked up the slack with their lovely brown eggs. Here's a pic of those first eggs. They made a delicious omelet, by the way...