New Eggs

Two weekends ago I decided I would remake the door to the run in the chicken tractor.  The door was not made very well and kept sticking when I tried to open it.  So I took it off and went to the garage to work on it out of the wind and on flat cement floor.  

On one of my trips back and forth between the corn crib carport and the garage, I heard some excited clucking coming from the big coop.  I went in a and someone had laid an egg on the floor in the corner of the coop.  This is the first egg I have gotten since fall!  But I was not happy that someone laid it on the ground and not in the nest box, so I put a cardboard box upside down in the corner to keep them from going in that area. 

I did get my door remade and it works terrific.

Later in the day when I was doing some chores in the two coops I hear some more loud clucking coming from the big coop.  This was different than I heard earlier.  When I went in the coop, Bert was up in the roost just clucking away, it was an angry kind of cluck, but I didn't have a clue what his problem was. 

I was on my way to the chicken tractor to get the feed bucket and fill it, when I walked in the corn crib carport all four chickens were out running around.  I said hello to them, I was happy to see Lillian out, she does not come out often at all.  When I went opened the door to the coop I was greeted by a opossum butt sticking out of the food bucket.  I slammed the door quick.  No wonder everyone was out acting frantic and Bert must have picked up on it and was sounding the alarm.

I ran into the house, Jim was watching a DVD he got from the library, I yelled "Opossum in the hen house, Opossum in the hen house!"  Jim said he would be out in a minute.  I thought he would get his gun but no he came out with one of the extra dog kennels. We put it up the door of the run and coaxed the varmint into it.  Jim took it away and relocated it.  

Now I was surprised to see one out again during the day but I did read somewhere that in the winter they can be seen during the day because food is scarce.  

So this weekend I found another egg, laid in the front of the next boxes.  So we are getting closer!  These are both brown eggs but they don't have the speckles that the ones from last year had on them. I am excited to see when the next one appears.  I'm just worried about them laying them on the ground.  I don't want them to be stepped on or have someone become curious and peck at it.  Once they find out how delicious they are they will be hard to stop from eating them once laid.