Popcorn has been laying the bad eggs. I thought it was Isabella, but for sure its Popcorn. We have found broken yolk on her feet a few times. Also, she is the only one who has white eggs. White chickens lay white eggs. We haven't had a white egg in a really long time. When we do get a white egg, they are the biggest of all of the rest. Popcorn is a Leghorn, I believe, which is the breed of chicken most used in egg laying operations. They lay the most of any other breed. Another thing about Popcorn... she is always STARVING in the morning. She is the smallest, hungriest chicken of the flock. She really is breaking a fast at breakfast, as if the long night sleep was a real hardship for her. I think I was misled about the leathery eggs being hers because they are light brown instead of white. I wonder if the hard white shell forms after the leathery one?
Because Ant wakes up first, he lets out the chickens. I feed them after I get up. This morning before I gave them breakfast, I found all the chickens suspiciously gathered in a circle eating. In my experience, that always means they are up to no good. Our flock in Missouri did this once. I discovered that day that chickens are cannibals. They were all eating the rooster. Yuck! Luckily, no one was dead today- although that did cross my mind. They were eating a leather egg laid on the ground. Its not a good thing when chickens start eating eggs. The may turn around and eat them right after laying them, or you'll have a few bad apples in the flock that peck the eggs. Once this bad habit is learned, its hard to break and can ruin a flock of good layers. On a farm, the egg-peckers are the first to enter the soup pot. But, this is not a farm and we are not dependent on the eggs to feed us. These are town chickens and pets. We will have to outsmart them. Even though chicken brains are notoriously tiny, outsmarting them is harder then you might think.
We have put Popcorn on a comfrey and eggshell diet. The eggshells need to be ground fine so they don't look like eggs; otherwise, this just reinforces the egg pecking behavior. We named Popcorn, "The Miracle" in the Cast of Characters. Here is her story:
Popcorn's story
Popcorn was born 3 years ago in the Spring of 2017 in a class incubator. What was so miraculous about Popcorn is that she came from store bought eggs. Yes, that's right. The 3rd grade teacher that year, Ms. G, walked into a grocery store and bought a dozen fertilized eggs. She put them in an incubator and Popcorn, and only Popcorn hatched. The other 11 eggs did not hatch. That makes Popcorn a miracle to me. It's also a miracle because she was supposed to be eaten and her life was spared. Yes, you can hatch fertilized grocery store bought eggs. Make sure you read the date on the carton and get the freshest ones. They will probably be Leghorns. Because of Popcorn, I now love Leghorns.
Since Popcorn had no siblings, the teacher, Ms. G., went and bought another baby chick to be her sister. That chick was Diamond, originally named Penny by the class. So Popcorn and Diamond have been together since they were chicks. They moved into the school chicken pen with Ol' Big Red and Speckles (both now deceased, RIP). They lived a pretty uneventful life- besides their wonderful luck of being school chickens.
Popcorn is tiny but mighty in the pecking order. She is very bossy and picks on Sara relentlessly. Although she is not the leader, she has also taken a pretty high position mixing into my flock. She is not afraid of attacking anyone. Only the home chickens Roxy and Penny are higher up in the pecking order than her. She is also a very funny and has big, bulging eyes. It makes you laugh to watch her and her floppy comb. She loves cameras and is quite photogenic. Maybe she has a future as movie star, who knows?
Farmer Ladybug 🐞
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