Broody girls

It always seems that just as one girl comes back into lay another goes broody. Today Gold has come back into lay after a two week break.

At the same time both Mango and Cloud have gone broody together again. These two are just too in tune with each other. Cloud had laid fourteen eggs and Mango had laid nine eggs. It doesn’t seem to matter how many eggs they have laid as it seems that as soon as Cloud goes broody it triggers Mango to go broody too. It’s a bit of nuisance because when they are broody together they are harder to break out of it.

Storm hasn’t laid for ten days. I don’t know why she has just stopped although I did think she was going broody for about half a day and then she seemed to give up so maybe that was enough.

When Sugar started laying she laid five eggs then took a break of eleven days. She then started laying again and has now laid four eggs. She is laying every other day and her eggs have good shells. Sugar laid soft shelled eggs last year. I feel as if she has sorted this problem out for herself. Since before she started laying this year Sugar was going to the grit and oyster shell.

Sugar has been constantly going to the grit and oyster shell since then. She is always flicking the oyster shell out and picking through it. It is as if she knows that was what she needed. Her egg shells now even have little calcium bubbles on them. Because she is laying good shells she no longer has any problem laying her eggs.

But Sugar is still the same in that she is sitting in the run a lot with her wings slightly held away from her body and the humped shape before her tail. It’s as if she has worked out what she needed to lay good shelled eggs but the underlying problem with her is still there.

When Sugar is up and about she looks perfectly normal and she has been digging holes in the run with the rest of the girls. But she still sits for ninety percent of the time and still has the strange posture. I thought at first when she started laying her posture was worse but I don’t now think it was. I think I just noticed it more. Her posture has remained like that when she is sitting.

Whatever is adrift with Sugar she is managing to live with it so we will just accept that this is Sugar and see how she goes on.

We hardly ever have more than three girls laying at the same time. It will be good when we have the new girls laying to add to the numbers laying at any one time. They are keeping us going with eggs though so we are not complaining.

Edit

Three days later Storm is back in lay after a two week break and Sugar has gone broody after laying six eggs.