Despite my efforts of throwing Bernie out of the nesting box and locking her out of the coop she is still broodie. Even to the extent that yesterday poor Holly ran in to the nesting box to lay her egg when I scooped Bernie out of there, and Bernie went and sat right on top of poor Holly. There was a lot of screaming coming from the coop so I opened the lid to see what was happening, and if you didn't know I had three chickens you could have been forgiven for thinking that Bernie was just big, because she was sitting on top of Holly to the extent that you couldn't even see her.
So, I grabbed Bernie off poor little Holly and proceeded to plant seeds (lettuce, silverbeet and spinach) in seed raising trays one handed as I had Bernie 'under my wing' in my left hand. Bernie normally seriously dislikes being handled, but she got used to it after me carrying her around for half an hour or so. She even seemed interested in what I was doing once she got used to the fact that she was being held. That said, when I put her back down in the run (with the coop door firmly closed) I realised that my left arm had gotten very used to holding her, and it felt strangely light when I put her back down. I think I might weigh her later today.....just out of curiosity, she has a while to break out of her broodiness before her name is on the pot.
There are also lots of chicken feathers in and around the coop, and I have read that chickens go off lay when they are malting, so at the moment I'm satisfied that we are getting one egg a day again. Hopefully the three girls will all be laying again soon, as it would be nice to host a breakfast party or two at this time of year.
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