In Which We Are Eggless

I haven’t had an egg in three days. This is ridiculous.

I know egg production eases off when the days get shorter. I know that as chooks get older they lay less. But they’re under two years old, for goodness sakes, and there was only one day last year when neither hen laid.

No - they’re up to something. I just can’t work out what.

For a year and a half, the chooks laid eggs in the nice warm nesting box provided. There was a certain amount of bickering about taking too long – one hen hopping up and down outside with its legs crossed whilst the other hogged the facilities. But by and large, the system worked well.

Then, a couple of months back, the eggs stopped. It didn’t take me long to find out why – the chooks had relocated their operation to the base of the wisteria on the side terrace. No problem, I just collected eggs from there.

But this was only the beginning. The wisteria nest was soon abandoned in favour of a site under a rose bush near the back door.

So whilst the chooks dotted their eggs about the landscape like a couple of demented Easter Bunnies, I followed patiently. Bad weather would, I thought, drive them back to their snug dry nest box once Winter set in.

Then things got really weird. A couple of weeks ago, Attila, our Light Sussex (Attila the Hen – geddit?) got locked out overnight. I always call into the coop before shutting it up each evening – reassured by the soft sleepy clucks in response. The chooks are generally inseparable – it never occurred to me that one would bed down without the other. But Attila must have gone AWOL and slept out all night - daybreak saw her standing alone outside the back door, waiting for breakfast.

Whether as a result of her ordeal, or a cause of it, she’s now started sleeping on the mesh roof of the chicken run. I have absolutely no idea why. It can’t be red mite, as the other chook is perfectly happy indoors as usual. They are still otherwise best friends, and as I write are enjoying adjoining dust baths in my dahlia bed as though nothing were amiss.

But I can’t find any eggs, and have to lift Attila onto her perch each night. Has she gone senile? Has she become secretly airborne now she roosts on roofs; is she laying eggs in a tree somewhere? And why is the other chook joining in the egg-hunt game, but not the bedswapping?

Questions questions. It’s not easy trying to second-guess the logical processes of animals with brains the size of peanuts.

But I need those eggs and, one way or another, I’m going to get them