The Yolk Is On Us

A couple of weeks ago, we had some hot, dry weather here, temps reaching the upper 90's. We stopped finding eggs. I heard that hens stopped laying in very hot temps, so figured that was the case with our hens. Finally, it cooled off a bit, and we got some rain, and once again, we started finding some eggs in the nesting boxes in the coop.

Today, Chris came in and said he found a few eggs out in the stable by the tractor. Two of them were broken, and there was one whole brown egg. I was a little confused. I know Elizabeth, the only one I thought to lay brown eggs, had been giving me a daily egg, and I had gotten one for the last 5 or 6 days, I thought, and had already gotten hers this morning. Was she laying more than one a day? I took the egg inside and washed it off and set it out to dry.

Later, I went outside to bush hog for a bit. When I came back to the stable to park the tractor, Chris and Finley were standing by a cache of 16 eggs. Now, I doubt they ever stopped laying. They just found a cooler place to do it: under the bush hog. And I was wondering why the polish hen hadn't given me any more eggs once it cooled down... but I guess she still preferred the shelter of the tractor.

So I raked out the old hay to discourage them from laying there any longer. This time the yolk's on them.