The egg on the left was laid one day before the egg on the right (by the same chicken), but is HUGE! I predict that it's a double-yolker, but we'll have to wait and see.
This chicken happens to have gone broody too, so last night I started trying to break her broodiness. I took away the plastic decoy eggs and gave the hen a "clutch" of ice cubes to sit on. Hopefully this will cool down her bottom enough to stop the broodiness. If that doesn't work, my next tactic will be to dunk her bottom side in some cold water. I don't really want to have to resort to the "tiny metal cage" tactic because it sounds uncomfortable, plus I don't have an appropriate cage. Hopefully the ice cubes will do the trick!
I've been lucky and haven't had to deal with any of them getting broody yet. Whenever they've laid an egg and are lingering on it, I gently push them out of the nest box and give them a homemade rice treat in the chicken run to show them that outside is way more fun than sitting on eggs.
ReplyDeleteMy problems is that they always lay their eggs when I'm at work, so I can't really keep an eye on them.
ReplyDelete