Esmerelda and Anastasia
Very strange things my chooks - I got a pair of Isa Browns from Rentachook about a year ago and they were lovely - very tame, amusing and productive - so I got another pair from a local produce place. These two were very skittish and nervous, so much so that we called one of them Nervous Nellie. We're fairly sure that one of the new ones doesn't lay as we have never had 4 eggs in one day but can't work out which. I'm tempted to dye their bums different colours to see if I can work it out!
As I have mentioned before, when we came back from holiday the pairs had become a one and a three and I have noticed over the last couple of weeks that Nervous Nellie has morphed into Bossy Knickers. I caught her today jumping on the back of one of the others and pulling her feathers out - horrid thing. They remind me of playground bullies.
They are also a bit fussy, Hubby brought some shredded paper home for the rabbits and I thought it would make good nesting material but no - they scorned it and laid their eggs on the floor of the coop in the straw. I put a very small handful of straw on top of the paper and hey presto the eggs were back in the boxes - very easily fooled.
And the Glamour Girls, Silver Laced Wyandottes, are completely useless, they behave as if I have an axe in my hand if I go anywhere near them and have failed to produce a single egg. Lucky for them I am way too soft to eat my own pets!
3 comments:
The chook's comb can be a good guide as to whether they are on the lay or not. From looking at your photo, if I had to guess out of those 2, I would say Esmerelda was the non-layer. Has she got the smallest, dullest comb of all 4 Isa's?
Have to confess I used very old photos because I was too lazy to go out and take new ones. Will investigate combs tomorrow. I also checked out the Freeranger post on chicken husbandry which gave me lots of ideas. Think my Wyandottes are too bloody timid to lay anything, maybe I should sell them. I don't mind the lack of eggs, it's being treated like an axe murderer that I find hard to cope with.
Ok James I've looked at the combs and yes Esmerelda does have the smallest dullest comb BUT I know that she has laid many eggs because when we only had Esme and An we got 2 eggs almost every day. She is about 17 months old now, could she be past it already? Poor dear.
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