Gertie has been laying an egg every day now since she started and I’ve been enjoying them fried, scrambled and hard boiled. Miguel told me that I should leave one in the nest so that she didn’t decide to go into the bush to lay her eggs. Apparently a chicken will not keep laying in the same place if all her eggs disappear. Makes sense to me. I had been taking them out of the nest each day so I figured I’d better put one back. I got one out of the fridge and marked it with a felt pen so I’d know I was getting the fresh one and put it back in.
Okay, so now Gertie has laid about 20 eggs since she started and has two left in her nest. She has decided that it’s time to hatch them. Oh boy… I wasn’t counting on that! I looked up all my notes (they’re filed under chicken shit) and found that if you put ice cubes into the clutch, the hen will stop sitting on them. I placed a dozen cubes in the nest while Gertie was out to get a drink of water. She came back and turned them all along with her eggs and sat on them. I tried again the next day with the same result. Well this is the tropics and ice doesn’t last too long so what did I expect? I gave up. Now she’s going to spend three weeks sitting on one egg that may or may not hatch since the one from the fridge will definitely not. Tune in at the end of the month to find out if Gertie becomes a mom!
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