She’s been this way for a few weeks now. At first, I thought she was just enjoying lingering in the nesting boxes perched upon the bounty of beautiful colorful orbs each day. Yet soon enough it was clear. She had morphed into a dinosaur-like shrieking pancake that simply did not want me lifting her off the nesting box. She was definitely broody. So each day it has gone on, I pry her from the box, give her a good scratch, a wing rub and send her on her way to poo, eat and drink. However, what happened the other day left me speechless.
It was exactly as the routine had been going. I entered the coop. She shrieked, I scooped her up and placed her by the coop’s pop door. Then two eggs plooped out onto the ground. Where did they come from? Thankfully they didn’t break. I didn’t feel them underneath of her. The next morning the same thing happened. It was so strange. Being a little bantam Brahma clearly she was not hiding eggs in the fluff of her chest or belly.
The next day before lifting her from the box, I decided to feel around for eggs. There were two underneath of her. Then it dawned on me to reach up and feel up under her wings and sure enough, she had tucked two eggs up inside her “wing pits” one on each side. She was trying to incubate eggs in her chicken arm pits! What a smart girl knowing that should could accommodate more eggs this way and also hide them from me too! This was a new one for me. Tell me, have your hens ever done this? Where is the strangest place you have ever discovered eggs?
5 thoughts on “Broody Hijinks”
This is in praise of bantams. A friend gave me some geese for my birthday. The first day a goose laid an egg. I begged a broody hen from a farmer neighbor and he gave me a bantam. I put the egg and the hen in a large travel cat box with some straw. The hen leapt onto the egg and sat there determinedly if a bit lopsided because her legs were way up each side of the egg. Next day another egg appeared so I gave it to the hen. She shuffled it underneath her and looked more on a level and more comfortable. I thought it was a long shot but the hen sat faithfully on the eggs and I gave her food and moral support. Right on time she hatched two large Emden goslings that towered above her even at only one day old. They and their foster mother lived happily in a pen in the garden until I decided they needed more exercise. The goslings quickly found the goldfish pond and the hen had hysterics until she realized they floated and didn’t sink.
What a story! Thank you for sharing it with me!
Yes! I had one broody steal eggs from another by smuggling them in her “wingpits!” So funny.
Definitely an uncommon sight for sure!
LOL adorable!!