who did it?

We work hard at keeping all of our laying hens in pens. Sometimes, while collecting eggs or moving their pen a few escape. Most are pretty easily caught..but the Brown Leg Horn, the Sicilian Buttercup, the Ancona and the Minorca..and even a few Buff Orpingtons can be really difficult to catch.

I'll see Homer running with the landing net..yup, the fishing net, chasing hens down. He will also lure them back into their enclosure with tasty tidbits we get from restaurants..stems of lettuce, apple cores, potato peels..it is an almost daily coaxing of getting the girls back where they belong.

And we don't have very many eggs at this time of year. They love spring and summer for egg laying, wintertime not so much.

And then we find something like this. Two little hens have been inside the garden area, we have not really tried to catch them, figuring they are on bug duty on these oddly warm days. Here under the floating row cover the two of them have established a nest! No idea the age of those eggs..sadly for us the eggs become pig food. Pigs are happy, they will eat them shell and all. The two hens will return to a pen, where we hope they school the rest of the flock in wintery egg laying.