ARRRGH--Broody chicken!

(small prelude: Some of you know this--when chickens go broody, they stay on the nest all day and night, and leave it once a day to eat and poop...consequently the poop is a MASSIVE one. Now on to the story.)


I have been seeing a massive poop on my back porch for about 2 weeks now, which means a chicken has gone broody OUTSIDE of the coop (a couple of htem have figured out how to fly-climb out of the coop, using wood struts to get htem over).

Now, I do NOT need more chicks, so I have searched the entire yard trying to find this darn hen and her eggs--around the fence line where the grass is tall, behind the wood pile, under the redwood trees on the far edge of the lawn...NOTHING.

So, today when I actually saw her on the porch, I decided to follow her...do you know how boring it is waiting for a chicken to return to her nest? I'm sure she figured out I was watching, so she took her own sweet time (and mine!) returning.
I had just about given up because she walked to the FRONT porch (our yard is weird) and was walking around there, with no signs that she was gonna go out and get on her nest...she started nosing (or would that be beaking?) around under the trailing edges of a planter MASSIVELY overgrown with mint...suddenly, she disappeared!

I spread the mint plant apart, and there in the center, lo and behold, a chicken!

And about 20 eggs!!!!

So she's had her nest right on the front porch THIS WHOLE TIME, and here I am, searching all the far corners of the yard [thunks head]!

It's a little much to hope that the eggs will hatch in time for me to bring chicks to the potluck, sigh.


Note to self: Next time search closer.

Second note to self: Trim mint and bring to potluck. Heh. Mint tea anyone?

-cobalt