Two broodies

Snow went broody three days ago. She had laid nine eggs in thirteen days which is actually one more than usual.

Red went broody yesterday. She had laid eight eggs in fourteen days. I have had to leave a nest box open for the laying girls to lay then I close them.

While Red was in the nest box Storm joined her. I only left one nest box open as this means Snow will stay out but not Red. The next minute Ginger joined them for what I thought was just her being nosy. But the next minute Ginger was in next to Red and Storm left the nest box.

A moment later Ginger left the nest box dropping her egg just in front of the ramp as she went. Having seen the girls lay eggs many times it often takes effort and quite a bit of obvious pushing to get the egg out. But occasionally, like Ginger this time, they just seem to casually drop it while looking quite unaware of it. Note the intense, broody glint, in Red’s eye in the photo above.

So we now have Popcorn, Maple and Ginger laying regularly and Storm laying erratically. Gold has had a break of two and a half weeks which is quite long for her so I don’t think she will start again. Last year she stopped half way through July. I then compared Gold’s eggs this year to last year. She has laid 52 this year and She laid 54 last year so I would say she is definitely finished.

Mango and Cloud are now both moulting so they are definitely finished for this year too. Popcorn and Maple are really good layers so they will hopefully keep us going.

Another odd thing is the difference in size between Red and Popcorn’s eggs. They are both the same breed although Popcorn is smaller than Red as was Autumn. I would say Popcorn is a similar size to what Autumn was and I would say that Red is slightly on the large side for a bantam. But Popcorn’s eggs are the size of the rest of the smaller girls and in fact smaller than some of them.

It isn’t a complaint because I don’t mind what size the girls’ eggs are and in fact would rather they are small so that the girls don’t have problems laying them but I just find it interesting. Also Popcorn makes up for the size of her eggs by laying four days in a row so we end up with the same amount of egg as Red’s eggs which are every other day. It just makes me smile when I see them side by side as in the photo above.