Our two hens decided this morning that it was time to kick things up a notch as far as their breakfast offerings were concerned. Apparently, their diet of pellets and the occasional snack just wasn't cutting it.
So they ate an egg.
When I opened the coop door at dawn to let Nellie and Hope out into the pen, yolk coated their beaks as they busily pecked away at the bedding on the coop’s floor, to find every last yummy bit.
From time to time over the years, our hens have broken an egg on purpose, but that probably wasn’t the case this time around. Nestled in the bedding were the remains of a very soft, thin, rubbery shell. So the egg may well have broken as soon as it was laid, providing a culinary temptation that was too strong for our Rhode Island Reds to resist.
A rubbery shell may stem from a calcium deficiency, but I’ve been giving the hens crushed oyster shells as a dietary supplement, to prevent that. Nellie has been laying normal eggs regularly. As recently as yesterday, in fact. But Hope rarely, if ever, lays nowadays. Perhaps Hope is getting back into the game and is still tuning up the mechanism?
The hens aren’t talking, at least not to me. Maybe it’s time for a coop cam.
So they ate an egg.
When I opened the coop door at dawn to let Nellie and Hope out into the pen, yolk coated their beaks as they busily pecked away at the bedding on the coop’s floor, to find every last yummy bit.
From time to time over the years, our hens have broken an egg on purpose, but that probably wasn’t the case this time around. Nestled in the bedding were the remains of a very soft, thin, rubbery shell. So the egg may well have broken as soon as it was laid, providing a culinary temptation that was too strong for our Rhode Island Reds to resist.
A rubbery shell may stem from a calcium deficiency, but I’ve been giving the hens crushed oyster shells as a dietary supplement, to prevent that. Nellie has been laying normal eggs regularly. As recently as yesterday, in fact. But Hope rarely, if ever, lays nowadays. Perhaps Hope is getting back into the game and is still tuning up the mechanism?
The hens aren’t talking, at least not to me. Maybe it’s time for a coop cam.
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