Yesterday afternoon Rusty went into the nest box and stayed there all afternoon. I was surprised that at the end of the day she hadn’t yet laid her egg and took her out of the nest box. She usually lays every other day and had actually laid the day before.
At bedtime she was back in the nest box and I moved her to the chicken shed. This morning she was back in the nest box again and I started to think maybe she was broody but I was surprised she would go broody when she hadn’t just laid an egg. I took her out of the nest box again.
Mid morning I lifted her from the nest box once more and there was her egg. I knew it was her egg as Freckles had already laid hers a bit earlier. I wasn’t sure at this point if she was broody or had just taken longer than usual to lay her egg.
She returned to the nest box and was joined by Emerald and Peaches who laid their eggs. Rusty sat on their eggs until I removed them. I am surprised that it’s Rusty rather than Freckles that looks as if she is broody as Freckles has always liked to gather other girls eggs underneath her. Freckles has been laying now for eight weeks and Rusty has only been laying for three weeks. I guess that’s enough eggs to be a good clutch though. She has laid nine eggs in total. Freckles has laid thirty eggs.
Later in the afternoon I decided to take Rusty out of the nest box again. Instead of putting her on the patio where she leaves a pile of shavings for me to sweep up I decided to put her in the run. Emerald promptly started digging right next to her and showered her in dirt. We couldn’t help finding this funny, although when I collected my camera and went to take some photos, Emerald then covered my feet in dirt too. As it was a warm day I was wearing my flip flops so my feet were in were the state as Rusty was.
Rusty sits covered in dirt
I am not looking at you
After a few moments she stood up and did a massive shake off. She ran at speed straight up the ladder for a quick drink from the water bottle then sat puffed up on the branch perch.
Rusty is a puff ball
Compare her to Apricot sat a little further along the same branch perch
She returned to the nest box shortly after this but as it was nearing the end of the day and the rest of the laying girls had laid I decided to close the nest boxes and leave her out. I don’t know if I can stop her going broody but for now I thought I would leave her out and see what the next day brings.
There is never a dull moment in this flock.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
No, it’s never dull. My Penny was broody last week. Broke her but now I’m hearing that classic Chuck Chuck Chuck from another hen so it won’t be long before we go through this again. Sigh…. It’s a spring thing.
I guess it is one of the things we have to go through in spring with our girls.
What a change, from dirty Rusty, to a lovely fluffy Rusty.
It was a dramatic change. It was so funny because she sat there without moving while Emerald just showered her in dirt. It was like having a dust bath without any of the effort. Then she stood up, shook off the dirt and took of like a little rocket. She is a funny little girl.
Do you think there is some miniature silkie in the breed background, to get the feathering? I have had them go broody after only 6 eggs; had 4 in the anti-broody crate for 4 days until this morning – have broken 3, including 2 silkies, but BigSil, my silver-pencilled wyandotte (the culprit of the 6 eggs, then go broody) had to be returned to the crate by mid morning.
I don’t really know how they get the different feathers in the breed. I suppose there could be some silkie background somewhere. It will be interesting later to compare the three amigos. I think Apricot will be ages yet though as the silkie feathered girls take so long to mature. I will come back to this in the future.