After all the excitement of the hawk incident, most of my girls were pretty anxious to get back to business as usual. So I was sorry to disappoint them yesterday by closing the gate in their face, but close it I did and left. I had other work to do! The Silkys on the other side of the yard were even more incensed as I did not let them out until I had made some sort of emergency makeshift run for them.
To accomplish this I put up a metal dog playpen and attached it to the chain link fence. Then I took my staple gun and stapled garden bird netting directly to the sides of their hutch. Next, I took a box of spring binder clips and attached the netting all the way around to top of the chain link and the dog playpen. It looks a ramshackle affair, but seems to be working! I can live with it for a couple of days till Bob and I can do something more permanent and less ghastly looking…
When finished I quickly ducked under, opened up their hutch, gave them their ladder and watched for them to come out. They didn’t. I waited, and waited! Oh-KAY-THEN. I went inside to watch from the window. It took the two adults about a half an hour to come out, but the three babies took till almost noon! Poor things.
Later in the evening I went out to lock up the hutches and collect any remaining eggs from the day. The egg count was understandably very low. This happens when the girls get stressed. However, the most curious thing I found wasn’t in the nesting boxes.
It was this…
and I found it in the leaf litter out in the run!
These are Tippy’s eggs. the one on the right is normal, and the one on the left is about the size of a medium jaw breaker!
I know it to be hers, because she is the only girl I have that lays white eggs. (blue tint is an anomaly of the photo) The little one is called a *Wind Egg, or as some crusty folk call it, a “Fart Egg.” When opened the inside will contain only the albumin or “white” of the egg. Quite irregular, but then I guess if you are throttled the day before by a hawk and he pulls out all your tail feathers, but you thankfully manage to get away, then you can be expected to be a little off the next day.
Poor baby!
*For more amazing and strange egg anomalies look here: http://www.poultryhelp.com/oddeggs.html
Life on the Farmlet 
Lynda, are you sure that little “egg” isn’t a golf ball? Poor babies, I would be so stressed after a day like they had yesterday I probably wouldn’t lay any eggs at all. Now I must ask what might seem like a really dumb question but please remember, I don’t know much about chicken breeds. Is Tippy having a bad hair day or is that top knot her normal do?
Speaking of hawks – saw the most gorgeous red tail float lazily over our heads while on our morning walk today. We used to see a lot of these guys when we first moved out here 15+ years ago – not so many anymore????
Hey Lindy, the answer to your question about Tippy is… Both. What I mean is, she is a Buff Polish and when she’s not having a bad hair/feather day, she should be looking like this Click on Tippy to take you there) Tippy is in the foreground in the picture and Topper is just in front of her, but because of the rain and throttling she got a lot of mud in her topknot which glued her feathers and in the newer post it looks really bad.
Oh yes, and in case you’ve forgotten what we teachers always told our kiddies in class: “There are no dumb questions there are only unasked ones,” or the other variation, “The only dumb questions are the ones you don’t ask!” 😀
Poor baby — I’d lay a “fart egg” after a day like that, too!
Hi Lauren!
Thankfully, she is looking a bit more like her old self today… though that tail is going to take months to grow back! I even let everybody out today about 45 minutes before sundown. They were all so pleased to be out that they never left the fenced in area of our yard, and then put themselves to bed on time! (SUPERVISED playtime, of course!)
I’m glad you posted the picture of her! Thankfully she’s not too badly hurt.
Nah, she looked a whole lot better when her feather top dried out and fluffed up, but that tail took a ~l.o.n.g~ time to grow back in. Poor baby.