The Conspirators

I thought it was a little weird that I wasn't finding any eggs in Old Jack's side of the coop. I mean I knew Pearl was in there laying on some eggs. Last I'd checked she had four eggs and I added two of Blackbeard's to see if they would hatch. But every time I'd been out there recently she acted as if she would take my arm off and beat me with it if I even tried to get anywhere near her nest. So, like any reasonable person, I left her alone.

I knew Precious had been broody just before Pearl and concluded that was why she wasn't laying. When they go broody something in their body chemistry just shuts the egg factory down. And it takes a while for it to get fired back up. Then there's Minnie. Minnie hasn't laid an egg yet. That I know of anyway. She's done nothing to provide for her room and board here on the farm. She has no accomplishments. She just sits around and looks pretty. Probably should have named her Paris.

Sweet Pea though had been doing a fine job of laying. Every day in fact. A perfect, tiny, green egg. So was she now hiding them? Nope. Was Pearl scaring her away from the nest boxes? Nope. Come to find out Sweet Pea would go in the coop daily and kick Pearl off her nest so she could lay her egg. Then Pearl, being the dutiful little mother hen would get back on the nest covering up the evidence. We now have THIRTEEN perfect, tiny, green eggs under Pearl. I only figured this out because I caught them in the act.

Pearl, and her eggs, have since been relocated to the back porch so she won't end up sitting on a stack of eggs two foot high.

I'm tellin' ya, it's always something.