Princess Layah makes headlines in another blog

Princess Layah, one of our two sex-linkeds, began sitting on eggs in a nesting box without moving, even for food and water, about a month ago. Jemi turned to the many chicken guidebooks that Elizabeth was given for Christmas, but kindly left here for our use in tending her small flock. Then, having identified the behavior as "brooding," Jemi turned to Wendy, who gave us our four hens last summer, to get her take on this behavior.

Here's what Wendy wrote after offering advice through a few private exchanges:

http://simplethrift.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/lesson-277-its-what-mothers-are-programmed-to-do/

Note: the photo in Wendy's post is NOT our bird, but we recognize the intense expression, plus can imagine a similar low grumble, though Layah hasn't pecked any of us...yet, anyway. (It's VERY obvious why grumbling, sulking and intense dark behavior in humans is known as "brooding").

And many thanks to the person who, through Wendy, offered us fertilized eggs. With a fox prowling the South End again, not sure Jemi could handle the anxiety of a real brood, though.

The Incredible Healing Eggs of Winter

This is the egg once it thawed....

But this is what it looked like when it was found...

The Winter of 2011 is proving challenging, because of the heavy snows and position of the chicken coop in the middle of our yard in deep snow. An electric warmer keeps the chickens' water from freezing, the coop has been insulated with plastic loosely enough to allow ventilation, and snow itself is an insulator as it builds up on top of and around the coop. We also are careful to keep a thick layer of hay, giving the hens a dry surface for walking and cushion for their nesting boxes. (Our "girls" are no dummies, sharing use of the same box (out of three) most of the time, we're guessing because it's been warmed by the previous hen.

Failure to gather eggs in time, however, has led to some of them getting cold enough to freeze and split, which afforded us the opportunity to observe this "healing" phenomena. Alas, my photos aren't great, but I think you can see that the egg was split, when retrieved, though not leaking...the internal membrane intact. After about half an hour in the warm house, however, and "Voila!" the sections realign and the cracks are only BARELY visible!