The Chicken Coop

When I first put the boxes in the hen house they all started to squabble over who gets to lay in them first. We thought that all 5 of the laying hens needed a box, but found that they all wanted to use the same one.
I read that you can put an egg in a box to encourage them to lay their eggs there. Do you think she is going for it? Maybe I shouldn't use a bright orange egg, not very realistic looking!
We named this one Henny Penny, she has special privilages. We got the chicken yard put together and the chicks got out along the bottom, so I reinforced with chicken wire all along the bottom. Then this hen showed us how she can just fly to the top and out of the yard. She flies out every single day. Thank goodness the other hens are too fat to fly out. They think about it a lot, eyeballing the top of the fence, but decide against it.


Troy is digging up our potatoes. Anytime Troy or I dig in the garden Henny Penny comes running as fast as she can hoping that we will expose a worm or two for her. She was so intent on finding a worm that I am surprised that she didn't get her head chopped off by getting in the way of the shovel. I had stopped watering the potatoes and so the ground was very hard. Troy didn't enjoy digging them up. The bottoms of his feet were bruised from jumping on the shovel. He was patient with the chicken looking for worms and me picking the potatoes up. This is about the most he does to help me each year in the garden, he digs the potatoes and carrots up for me. I am very grateful.