Some deteggtive work and a leave request

I knew for sure that as soon as the chickens started laying eggs I could go back to being a semi-normal person and would no longer have egg-anxiety. Of course I was wrong. Now I am so curious as to who's laying and who's not that I sit around devising plans to catch the hens in the act. I decided to do some detective work today and snuck out to the chicken coop about an hour earlier than usual. I've watched enough episodes of Scooby Doo to know how to sneak, so I was pretty confident in my technique.

I opened the pop door and Clementine and Sookie charged out flapping their wings and squawking. But Maggie was nowhere to be found. I peeked in to the nest boxes and found her on the nest sitting peacefully. A-ha! So she must be our morning layer.


When I started snapping pictures she got irritated by the nest box paparazzi and stood up for a moment. Underneath her I saw one golf ball and no eggs. At least I know she wasn't sitting on someone else's egg. I figured I'd give her some privacy in her egg labor so I came back inside. I cracked the patio door just a bit with the hopes of hearing an egg song so I could dash back outside and see her egg.

After about 45 minutes went by and we were well past the time of day when we've been getting our morning egg, I went outside to check on her and when I opened the nest box doors there she was. Just sitting here. No egg. Hmmm… I waited until lunchtime and went out and checked on her again and look what I found:


So I think one mystery is solved - our morning layer is Maggie. Now I'm off to devise a plan to catch our afternoon layer in the act. We got egg #7 tonight so I have to determine if it's Sookie or Clementine who's our late-in-the-day layer.

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On to the leave request. I'm going in for some surgery on my bum-thumb early Thursday morning so I don't know when I'll next be able to post. I have a bizarre case of "trigger thumb" and tomorrow is the day the surgeon will cut out the offending thumb tissue and stitch me back up. Mom is visiting to help Farmer B take care of the boys and the pets, but neither of them have agreed to blogging for me. Maybe I'll be back to posting in a day or two or maybe I'll go days dragging around a paw completely unable to take care of myself and drooling in the corner. I have no idea what to expect. So if you don't see me for a few days, you'll know why.