Hen Chronicles: Somebody missed the landing zone

For almost three months now, ever since we got our three hens back in April, they have consistently laid their eggs in the nest box within their coop, as they are supposed to do. Day after day after day, Snow, Stella and Nala have ventured to the same spot to deposit their delectable goodies.

Until last Monday.

When I headed out to the coop that morning to release the girls into their pen, I went through my usual ritual of feeding and watering them, and cleaning out any overnight deposits in the coop’s bedding. It was during that last step that I spotted a wayward egg - not in the nest box at the back of the coop but smack dab in the middle of the floor, only inches from the door leading from the coop out to the pen. There has been no repeat performance since then.

One of my favorite reference books on all things poultry - Raising Chickens For Dummies - talks about the misplaced egg phenomenon. “Some hens never seem to learn where to lay eggs,” the book explains, but obviously that wasn’t the problem in this case. Then there’s the possibility that the wandering hen may be “lacking in certain hormones.” Laying outside the next box “is also partially due to habit,” the book says, “so you need to work on both parts of the problem.”

The authors explain how to deal with all of this at some length, but I have a theory of my own about what happened in this case. If I’m right, I think I’ll just let nature take its course.

There’s no sneaking up on the girls when I go out to release them from the coop at 6:30 in the morning. They hear me coming. They can see me through the small window at the front of the coop. They’re hungry. And they know breakfast awaits as soon as they get out. So by the time I arrive on the scene, they’ve worked themselves into a hopping, jumping, clucking, chicken frenzy.

Here’s my theory. One of the girls probably was in the nest box Monday morning, getting ready to do what hens do, when the other two saw or heard me approaching the coop and started the crazy chicken dance. That excited the layer, who ran out of the nest box to join the others near the coop’s door, where she finally completed her “mission.”

The egg was still warm when I picked it up, so it was freshly laid. By a hen whose hunger pangs won out over her nesting instinct?