This year, I thought I’d try to occasionally post some everyday farm scenes that have become routine to us, but probably not for everyone. Today it is to the chicken coop.
Here’s a laying hen (as opposed to a broiler, which is raised for meat). Generally in the first few hours of the morning, the hens will hop into a nest box where they feel a bit protected, and lay an egg. They prefer to lay an egg in a nest box where there is already an egg. They are trying to make a clutch of 10 or so eggs to sit on and raise into more chickens. Unfortunately for the chickens, we come each day and take the beginnings of the clutch and they have to start all over the next day.
This is what might have been under the hen had I disturbed her – this is from a different box. We often get asked how you can get eggs without a rooster – hens will lay eggs whether or not there is a rooster around – only difference being if there is not a rooster, all the eggs will be infertile and will never hatch.