Well I said in the broody post that we had eggs turning up left, right and centre whilst Aino was sitting in the favourite nest box. We hoped that once she was gone things would go back to normal but we didn’t and we had hens laying away in bushes and changing the spot every few days. Our egg production went right down and I was convinced there was a pile of eggs hidden somewhere in our garden.

We finally got everyone laying in the house (or under it as one Brown Marsh Daisy insists on doing), except a Brown Marsh Daisy who we thought had a very well hidden nest. We spent days watching the chickens outside to see when there was only one BMD in sight and then go hunting. No luck at all.

The BMD who lays under the house was pretty consistent though, an egg a day. Earlier this week I noticed her under the house. I went back later but no egg. I really searched. The next day Sam found two eggs under the house. We thought I must have missed it but I suspected that both BMD were laying there and we had a thief in our midst. We popped a rubber egg under just in case, in the hopes that it put off whoever was eating them. Sure enough there were two eggs again the next day but no rubber egg. I was hoping that would be the last of it, we put a rubber egg down again but we then had a couple days of only getting one egg and the rubber one. It might be time to block the chickens off from there and hope they return to laying in the house. Although I’ve found some eggs from inside the house outside it so the thief may be going inside too.

After a week of hunting for the second BMD nest Sam finally found it, in the most overgrown part of the garden. There were 9 eggs in it. They all passed the floaty test though so we made a nice spanish omelette with some veggies from the polytunnel. Unfortunately, she hasn’t laid there again so we are back to hunting her! Ah the joys of truly free range chickens.

Any suggestion of who might be stealing our eggs, or ways we can prevent would be warmly welcomed!

Dans

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