Broody hens and the weather

Well, its so very hot here still, with humidity up to 100% (that day was horrid).

A hot spell usually means I'll have a few hens go broody.

A few things seem to trigger broodyness, such as leaving the eggs too long before collection. Especially when I am too busy, or forget to collect the eggs in a timely manner. I usually collect the eggs twice a day - first thing in the morning when I give the water troughs a clean out, and some nice cool fresh water. And about lunch time, when most hens will have laid.

The reasons for this are because I like the hens, and enjoy watching them, and I feel they should always have fresh water, and also as even though there are 8 nest boxes for 10 hens, they all seem to insist on fighting over one space. This can mean that an egg gets stepped on by a sharp claw, and cracked, and worse is then eaten!!

So I've just found one hen who took herself off to a secret nest, and has been sitting on rotten eggs for ages, and just as I had her back to normal, another one went broody. 

I left the eggs in the nest all day for about three days in a row which was perfect to prompt a round of broodyness in her combined with the high heat.

I caught her early though, and three days in the dog carrier box with plenty of food to build her back up, and no comfy nests has sorted her out.

I decided I was going to eat the next broody, but she is a young, very friendly orpington, and I like her. So she might just stay.

I had help with the egg collection today - I was so impressed! And we had seven eggs. Pretty good!

One of the hens is laying very thin shelled eggs now. They have a high quality feed and always free range, and have access to oyster shells at all times, but when they get a bit old, some hen's shells get too thin.

It looks like one was broken and eaten.

I have two older hens that I may have to retire. The Plymouth Barred rock is doing well though, I'll have to see who lays the thin shelled egg....