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Australia
I ran away from teaching to the country to grow veggies. There are also some chooks and a pair of troublesome goats who were so much trouble they had to go! My simple green life isn't always as simple or as green as I'd like...but I keep trying!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Foul fowl behaviour.

'Loooook into my eyes. 
 Looook into my eyes.  
You want to have my chickens.
You cannot resist me.'

 I think roosters go clucky!  Now before you laugh,  read on.  Before Henny decided motherhood was the go for her and hid her eggs under a bush. Brewster, the rooster was making odd noises and 'sitting' in strange places under bushes.  It was as if he was demonstrating the advantages of a range of good nest spots.

One day I even found him sitting on an egg under the cordyline.

As soon as Henny sat on her eggs under the bush, Brewster began making a different and constant noise that sounded like, 'ngg'.  It was high pitched but not very loud.  The other hens have always been a gregarious lot as you know, running up to us when they heard the door and even succeeding in getting into the house.  All of a sudden they eschewed our company choosing to stay close to Brewster.


I took people's advice and moved Henny into the shed with her eggs.  She didn't like it and wouldn't sit on them for a day.  They got cold.  She hopped back on the nest eventually and has been a model sitter for three weeks.  Sadly, I know they won't hatch and they are beginning to smell.  Henny has rotten kids and it nothing to do with their behaviour.

I have been trying to source some day old chickens to pop under her one night.  She will wake up one morning and get a dozen little surprises.  Unfortunately the man I was going to buy them from has had trouble with his incubator but her put me onto someone who can help.

One of the other hens squawks until Henny gets off the nest so she can lay her egg in there.  I have to retrieve it from under Henny.  So far I have been able to pick the new egg from the rotten ones. But the cook is breaking them into a cup, just in case I slip up.

Now today I may have discovered one reason why I haven't been getting many eggs.  Irene was on the back deck sort of dancing around in circles.  

Her bum got closer and closer to the ground. 

She looked as if she was doing the limbo. I could see an egg crowning and on the next pirouette she neatly deposited it on the ground.  Before I could open the door to pick it up she pecked it open and began to eat the contents. This cannot be good, I think.


10 comments:

  1. ndeed not, thye tell me egg eaters are only good for the pot.Poor Henry, no babies after all that work!

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  2. Chooks are great entertainment arnt they...when my Big M was a toddler, we would wait for the chook to make a certain noise, and I would know she was close to laying..and sure enough we would watch her and out would come the egg..Big M used to think it was the best thing..a warm egg to hold, that he has seen be laid..( I thought it was cool too!!!)

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  3. Well Von, you can relax on Henny's behalf...she will be getting some day old chicks tucked under her for all her efforts. Now, are you telling me I have to chop Irene? I don't want to...but I want googies too. Nobody told me keeping chickens would be this hard.

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  4. our chooks do the most insane things somedays(we have bout 60) ours have at times eaten there eggs,we just out golf balls in there nesting boxes ..it soon stopped

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  5. Uh oh, off with her head, you will never stop her eating eggs now! We had to do this recently, and it wasn't an easy thing to do...To make sure we got the right hen, we looked for yellow on her beak etc. Shut her in a pen for a week and observed closely. Every egg she laid, she ate.

    We have three clucky hens at the moment, but alas no rooster, it is very hard to convince them that the eggs are no good!

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  6. Great photos! We have just got 2 neww chickens and they are sooooooo naughty! They dont go in at night, they eat all ogf the cats food, they hang around the verandah messing it up. Maybe we need a rooster to keep them in line!

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  7. Irenre just doesn't want to be controlled by Brewster and doesn't want to be a mother! How could you chop off her head as suggested by Out Back?

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  8. Don't chop off poor Irene's head because she doesn't conform with the social norms of the farmyard!! Try the golf ball thing....it sounds like a behaviour problem...If she learned that eggs taste really yummy...she can learn that her beak might break with a hardened version of said egg.

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  9. Hazel, that hen looks so sweet and pretty, but that rooster looks mean! Lol, how can you let him loose on her!!! Hey, one of my chickens ate a few eggs a while ago, but hasn't done it since. Don't let heads roll too quickly

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  10. I'm out of my Comfort Zone when it comes to chicken affairs Hazel, particularly when it comes to their reproductive habits, and their 'executions', so I'm staying out of this...

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