{"id":10282,"date":"2015-03-05T10:49:59","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T10:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=10282"},"modified":"2015-03-05T10:49:59","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T10:49:59","slug":"practising-for-egg-laying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=10282","title":{"rendered":"Practising for egg laying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the last couple of weeks Amber has come in and sat in the nest box every morning while I poop pick the coop. This behaviour plus her being very vocal makes me think she is getting ready to start laying again.<\/p>\n<p>Amber comes in and has a twirl around then she sits herself down and stays there while I clean the coop. As soon as I have finished she promptly stands up and marches out. It is really amusing to see and I have no idea why she only does this while I am in the coop (or at least my head and hands are in the coop).<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes Honey will come in and watch her and most days Peaches and Barley come in and watch her. Emerald nearly always comes in as she leaves and has a quick scratch around in the nest box but doesn&#8217;t sit like Amber. Sparkle occasionally comes and has a peck and scratch from outside the pop hole or just inside.<\/p>\n<p>Topaz doesn&#8217;t bother with the main coop but goes and sits in her favourite right hand little coop on some of the days in between laying her egg. It&#8217;s as if she is never quite sure on which day her egg will come but she has always behaved like this. Toffee is the only one of the girls that hasn&#8217;t shown any interest at all so far. I guess when she is ready to lay she will just get on with it without the need to practice.<\/p>\n<p>I have been trying to remember to take my camera out with me in the morning to capture this and this morning I finally remembered.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10295\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/amber_goes_in_the-nest_box.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10295\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10295\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/amber_goes_in_the-nest_box.jpg\" alt=\"Amber goes into the nest box\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10295\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amber goes into the nest box<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_10296\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/has_a_twirl_around.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10296\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10296\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/has_a_twirl_around.jpg\" alt=\"She has a twirl around\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10296\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">She has a twirl around<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_10297\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/sits_herself_down.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10297\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10297\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/sits_herself_down.jpg\" alt=\"She sits herself down\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10297\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">She sits herself down<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_10298\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/has-a_look_below.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10298\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10298\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/has-a_look_below.jpg\" alt=\"She has a look below\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10298\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">She has a look below<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_10299\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/emeralds_turn.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10299\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10299\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/emeralds_turn.jpg\" alt=\"Once Amber leaves it's Emerald's turn\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10299\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Once Amber leaves it&#8217;s Emerald&#8217;s turn<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_10300\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/and_from_the_other_direction.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10300\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/and_from_the_other_direction.jpg\" alt=\"She likes to try facing both ways\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10300\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">She likes to try facing both ways<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Once Emerald has had a scratch around she also leaves. The funny thing is that all this activity takes place every morning while I clean the coop and yet none of the girls even lay their eggs in this nest box. They all prefer the little coops.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder if it&#8217;s something to do with being around the leader of the flock (me) I class myself as leader as obviously Topaz is top hen and my role is completely different. I also find it interesting that given the choice they prefer to lay their eggs in a place other than where they sleep at night.<\/p>\n<p>I have to say that I do enjoy this little ritual with the girls each morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the last couple of weeks Amber has come in and sat in the nest box every morning while I poop pick the coop. This behaviour plus her being very vocal makes me think she is getting ready to start &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=10282\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10282"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10304,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10282\/revisions\/10304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}