Carol's Chickens

Autumn came to us on 22nd June 2023 at three months old. Autumn laid her first egg on 3rd October 2023 and her last egg on 1st February 2024. She never laid again. We lost her overnight on 3rd May 2025. She was two years old.

Although we have only dropped from eight girls to seven the flock feels small at the moment. Autumn is missed, two years was too short a time. She was a beautiful girl.

Last night Autumn put herself to bed early. I got her back out for the bedtime sunflower hearts. She had some sunflower hearts and then returned to the perch in the chicken shed. This was about an hour before the pop hole closed. When I perched the girls that don’t go in themselves, Autumn was still perched next to Sugar.

This morning first thing Autumn wasn’t out in the run. I looked in the chicken shed with trepidation. There was Autumn in the middle of the shed. Autumn had gone overnight.

We knew yesterday that something wasn’t right but never expected Autumn to go so quickly. Autumn was exactly two years old.

I think at the back of my mind I had always known that a girl that doesn’t lay eggs must have something adrift. The good thing is that she didn’t have a long spell of going down hill. It was very fast. She had her last sunflower hearts at bedtime last night. There was no agonising decision to make or trip to the vets.

Autumn had laid forty five eggs in four months and then hadn’t laid in the fifteen months since then. After finding the weird string of tiny eggs in the run it seems that she wasn’t destined to ever lay again and in the end it was her downfall.

I will do a tribute to her over the next few days when I have been through my photos. I am feeling a bit shell shocked at the moment as this really wasn’t expected. It is so sad.

Snow had laid two days running. The eggs were the slightly odd shape that they have been since she started laying the odd eggs inside eggs. On the third day the weird three bits joined egg of my last post appeared in the run and I naturally assumed that was from snow too.

But the following day Snow was in the nest box and I really didn’t expect her to lay again. When Snow came out there was her egg and it was perfectly normal like her eggs used to be. It was not only smooth in shape but was the, long, torpedo shape that her eggs used to be.

The egg on the right was from two days ago and is the shape that all her recent eggs have been but with less wobble than they have had. The egg on the left is her most recent egg and is the shape that her eggs always used to be and is also smooth shelled.

We are now thinking that the weird one from a few days ago wasn’t from Snow after all. We are thinking that it was from Autumn. Autumn laid from October until the first of February last year and hasn’t laid since.

Also Autumn is looking a bit off. She has spent the day either standing or sitting. She isn’t active and she has a dead look in her eye. She has lost her sparkle.

Autumn has the look in her eyes that she had when she was stripping off her scales. We know these girls so well that we know something is adrift with her. Time will tell.

Snow had laid two days running so we weren’t expecting her to lay today. Her last three eggs have been almost normal with just a slight wobble in the shell. Her shells have a slight spiral groove in them.

Then this afternoon I saw something strange in the run. It had obviously come from Snow and caught her unaware as it was in the run. This meant it was dirty but I washed it gently to photograph it. It looked like three soft shells joined together, although the end of one felt like a knob of hard compressed shell.

The knob on the left is actually hard. When I pulled them all open the first two had two mini yolks in each of them and the last one, on the right, was just white.

Snow looks fine and normal at the moment. It feels to me as if Snow is producing far too many eggs in quick succession for her system to be able to cope with. This is something I have never come across before and I can’t find anything like this on any of the chicken forums.

I have wondered before where the missing yolks went from the eggs inside eggs that only had a yolk on the inside one. It almost seems as if here they are! It’s all very odd.

It’s frustrating because her last three eggs seemed better. Something has obviously gone adrift inside her with her egg laying machinery. I can’t help thinking that this doesn’t bode well for her future but for now we have to just hope she can keep getting her oddities laid.

Gold has now gone broody but yesterday Red came back into lay after a two week break. Gold has laid eight eggs in two weeks since her last broody spell. It seems this year that every time a girl comes back into lay another one goes broody. This means we have stayed with three out of eight girls laying.

Snow laid her egg two days after the soft shelled one. It was small, hard shelled and with only a very slight wobble on the shell. It is her most normal looking egg since things changed with her egg laying so that’s encouraging.

Red’s egg is on the left, Snow’s egg is in the middle and Storm’s egg is on the right. Snow’s egg is the most normal it’s been for ages.

Meanwhile Mango and Cloud are still broody after two weeks. They have been exhibiting the mother and chick behaviour. Since the first few days of going broody Mango has been sitting on top of Cloud.

This may look quite cute but it drives me nuts. I think it makes them take longer to come out of it while they are behaving like this. It also means the broody crate wouldn’t work unless I just put one of them in it.

It is always this way round with Mango on top. At bedtime I have been splitting them up so that they can’t stay like this overnight. I now put one of them on the back perch and one on the side perch.

It’s been driving me crazy but I think Mango is just beginning to come out of it as when I lift them out she stays out in the run a bit longer than Cloud. I hope this means Cloud will soon follow and they will come out of it soon.

My strategy has been to lift them out every time I go in the run and then when the laying girls have laid I close the nest boxes and the chicken shed. It amazes me how even when they have been out all afternoon as soon as I open up they are straight back in.

I have also been closing the nest boxes before bedtime. This has made Mango and Cloud settle together on top of the nest box rather than inside. I am hopeful that they will come out of this soon. Never a dull moment in our chicken run!

Yesterday Snow laid a hard shelled egg inside a soft shelled egg for the second time but she looked fine. Today she had the humped posture that indicates struggling with egg laying. As she had laid yesterday morning I expected another weird egg tomorrow morning.

By late afternoon Snow looked back to her normal self again. I checked the nest boxes and Snow had laid again. This time it was normal sized but soft shelled. It also had what looked like a mini bit of soft shell with it.

When I opened the soft shell it had a normal egg inside.

It seems as if Snow is laying too many eggs in quick succession. The trouble is there is no way either she or we can slow it down. I am really worried that this will eventually be her down fall but there is nothing that can be done about it.

I wish Snow would take a break but nature will take it’s course and all we can do is hope that she will continue to get her eggs laid.

The annoying thing is, that when Snow started laying she laid tiny torpedo shaped eggs. I was really pleased because I thought this meant she wouldn’t have egg laying problems. Something has obviously changed internally. It’s very frustrating. We can only keep our fingers crossed for her.

Since Snow laid her weird eggs she has laid eight wobbly shaped eggs, one every other day. Yesterday was the day she should have laid her next egg. She spent a couple of hours in a nest box then came out without laying. I wondered if this meant another weird egg was on the way.

This morning there was another weird egg under her roost spot. Snow looked fine and this time hadn’t looked poorly before laying it.

Again it was huge, the size of Red’s egg. I could feel the hard shelled egg inside. It also had a little tail attached to the bottom.

I don’t know why this is happening and I haven’t been able to find any answers on google. Every video I have seen on You Tube shows the outside egg with a yolk so I wonder why Snow’s outside egg has no yolk. The whole thing is a mystery and not something I have come across before.

I worry that there must be something wrong inside for this to be happening but I am relieved that so far Snow is getting the eggs laid. It is fortunate that the outer shell is soft and flexible because being so large it could otherwise get stuck or cause a prolapse.

I can only hope that Snow keeps getting her eggs laid without it causing her any ill effect. It is a worry that sometime in the future it may go wrong for her.

In other news Storm came back into lay after a break of two and a half weeks and has now laid two eggs.

Red came out of her broody spell after a week. Mango and Cloud have now been broody for a week so far and show no sign of coming out of it yet.

We have Gold, Storm and Snow currently laying. I scrambled Snow’s inner egg and fed it back to the girls as we didn’t fancy it. I did the same with her last one too.

We do seem to experience the full range of problems with our small flock. I just hope we can keep them healthy despite the set backs.

I can’t remember when we have had so many broodies in quick succession. I wonder if it’s because we have had such good weather earlier in the year than usual.

Mango and Cloud have now gone broody together. They are so in sync with each other that it’s no surprise they have gone broody together. It was if Mango was ready and waited until the next day for Cloud to catch up with her.

This is how it unfolded. The day before yesterday started with Mango.

When I lifted Mango out of the nest box she stayed fluffed up. Her egg was next to Red. Later she moved away and seemed back to normal. Sometimes they spend longer and longer in the nest box until they are properly broody. I suspected she was going to go broody soon.

The next day, which was yesterday, Cloud was in the nest box with Red.

After Cloud had been in the nest box with Red for most of the afternoon I lifted her out. Her egg was next to Red.

Cloud also eventually moved away and carried on as normal. At bedtime I was surprised to find that Mango and Cloud were not sitting on top of the nest box as usual. I checked the nest boxes and there they were side by side sitting in a nest box together. I thought this meant they were definitely broody.

This morning Mango and Cloud were once again together in the nest box and when I lifted the lid Mango fluffed up.

Mango and Cloud are broody along with Red. This means we are now down to just two girls laying, Gold and Snow. Eggs are going to be a bit thin on the ground for a while. I can’t believe with a flock of eight we now have only two girls laying. Sigh!

Edit

When I checked back later Snow was in one nest box and these three girls were together. I thought they looked so cute that I just to add another photo.

It seems to be a constant chain of broody girls at the moment. Red went broody the day after Snow. This is Red’s first time broody so I don’t how long she will be but she seems quite determined. She soon returns to the nest box each time I lift her out. She has laid a total of 66 eggs in six months, two months being at the end of last year and four months this year.

Red is completely docile and when I lift her out and put her in the run she just sits there looking a bit dazed.

Mango laid her egg next to Red. Mango and Cloud seem to like company when they lay their eggs.

Snow appeared to come out of being broody after just one day. She then started spending about half her time in the nest box and half in the run.

Today snow went back to spending all her time in the nest box. My husband suggested perhaps she wanted to lay an egg but I said I thought it was much too soon. However later today when I checked on them Snow and Red were together in a nest box. The next minute Snow came out and there was a very small wobbly egg.

This is very odd as Snow has only missed two days laying as she laid her last egg on her first broody day. She is still making the boc boc sound of a broody girl. I’m not sure quite what is going on with her.

I also suddenly realised that we hadn’t had an egg from Storm for a while. I checked my egg records and she hasn’t laid for two weeks. She has laid 13 eggs in four weeks so far this year. As she hasn’t gone broody I’m not sure if she is done already or just taking a break.

Storm is in her fourth year of laying. She laid 55 eggs in her first year, 69 eggs in her second year and 68 eggs in her third year.

This means that when I recently said we were down to four girls laying it was in actual fact three but if Snow continues to lay it will be four again. It all keeps changing so fast. We will have to wait and see how Snow goes on. It’s all very odd.

It always seems to be a case of one girl back in lay another out of lay. The day after Gold came back in lay Snow went broody so we are now back to four girls laying.

I am happy to leave her broody as after her recent weird eggs I think a break from laying will be good for her. I will just lift her out for breaks.

While trying to get a photo of her Mango was immediately interested in Snow in the nest box. Snow responded by raising her tail and growling.

Mango’s legs are in the top left of the photo as she is walking around sides of the nest box.

When I next checked Mango was next to Snow and I soon realised she had laid her egg next to her. As always an occupied nest box is the most popular one to lay an egg in. Snow looked rather grumpy about this. A little later Cloud’s egg was also next to Snow.

Later I lifted Snow out for a break and she had some water then some pellets and then returned to the nest box. We seem to constantly have at least one broody girl.

Edit

Later in the day Snow got one last egg laid as they often do when they have just gone broody. It was her her fifth wobbly egg after her two weird ones.

Snow has laid eleven eggs in three weeks since her last broody spell. Last time she took a two week break so even if she only takes two weeks again this time I still think the break will do her good. I have also put some vitamins in the water as it can’t hurt to give all the help I can.