Dandelion’s second egg

It has been a week since Dandelion laid her first egg. She seems to be struggling to get started with the egg laying routine. For the last few days she has looked a bit down again and I felt that another egg was on it’s way. She spends a lot of time sitting with her head down into her ruffles.

Yesterday morning when I went out to clean the chicken shed there was a tiny, pale shelled, egg under Dandelion’s roost spot. When I picked it up I found that is was cracked.

Dandelion’s cracked egg on the left

Rusty’s egg is in the middle and Freckles egg is on the right for comparison. Dandelion’s egg has a very thin shell and she may have dropped it from the perch causing it to crack.

Just like last time she didn’t seem to know that she had laid it. I found her a couple of times on the ramp to one of the nest boxes. Emerald and Barley laid their eggs and this intimated her. Freckles sat in the nest box for a while too and Dandelion didn’t have the courage to enter.

The next I time checked I saw Dandelion go in to the chicken shed. She settled herself into a corner of the shed.

Dandelion settles in the corner of the chicken shed

She arranges the pine shavings around her

She came out a little later shouting as if she had laid an egg. When I checked there was no egg. She was back to her normal self though and had decided the job had been done.

The really good thing about this is that if she is too nervous to go to the nest boxes she can go to the chicken shed instead. She is familiar with the shed and it is as good a place to lay as a nest box.

We have decided not to make another nest box for now. If the three amigos will be happy to lay their eggs in the chicken shed then that will be fine. That will be another problem solved. It just remains to be seen if the other two do the same.