Comments on: A losing preposition

By: Jane

Jane — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:30:19 +0000

Welcome Back from New Mexico!!!!

I think you should try your hand at childrens’ books, too !! You have a knack!!

Love your stories.

Don and I are off to Arizona this week…will look for prickly pears!!!

Enjoy the crabs!!!

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:19:53 +0000

Can’t wait to hear if the dummy eggs work!

By: Tamar

Tamar — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:07:35 +0000

Flynna — Sounds like a real uplifting read! But if you say it’s good …

By: flynna

flynna — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:51:32 +0000

You tell the best bedtime stories for adults (& chickens!)
thanks.
Have you read Where the Wild Things Were by William Stolzenburg? Subtitle: Life, Death & Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators. It’s a great look at the food chain & why the world needs predators. Also, exciting & compelling story telling. (Available through CLAMS)

By: beachnitpicker

beachnitpicker — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:07:44 +0000

Don’t those chickens look just like skeptical potential home-buyers? (Is the roof sound? How’s the wiring? Not much of a view!)I’ll bet a realtor could really relate to that picture.

By: Tamar

Tamar — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:07:03 +0000

That’s four votes for dummy eggs, and I’m going to give it a try. We already know they like golf balls — we have a pile in the garage and they go in and sit on them whenever we leave the garage door open.

If that fails, I’ll go with the board accross the front to keep the straw in.

I’m very glad to know that other people with chickens also lose to them.

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:10:35 +0000

We use the ‘dummy’ egg – a china egg or an old egg marked with an ‘X’ so I can tell it from the fresh ones. Not a mistake you want to make twice.

But the dummy egg only works part of the time. I have yet to discover why chickens lay where they do. They even change their minds and move their laying spots on a semi-regular basis, just to keep me guessing perhaps?
The dogs find it before I do, so I’ve started following the dogs…

Your nest boxes look perfectly sound. When you’ve given up and don’t care where they lay anymore, that’s when they will start using them. It’s all part of their master plan to infect you with “chicken madness”.

By: Catalina

Catalina — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:28:16 +0000

Awww cute chickens.
I would suggest putting a few golf balls in their nest boxes.
Are the nest boxes higher than their roosts?
That can discourage them from laying in their nest boxes.
Or try what I did with one of my picky hens.
I ended up giving her what she wanted: a nice covered cat litter box on the floor.
Chickens win every time!

By: Darren (Green Change)

Darren (Green Change) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:13:12 +0000

It might pay to place a few eggs in the egg boxes yourself (just for a day or two), so they think somebody else has laid some there. That can often trick them into having a go themselves.

Chickens are either really dumb or really smart. I haven’t yet figured out which .

By: booshadesmom

booshadesmom — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:09:17 +0000

We used a glass egg to encourage them to lay. Maybe it still works?