September 15th, 2010
Sleep never arriveth and I woke up exhausted and weary. However, the mystery is solved! Late this morning, as Goldie sat in her nest box...on nothing.....Raven got ancy and started clucking and pacing back and forth, jumping up and down on to the ledge where all of the nest boxes are located. She finally tip toed her way in past Goldie’s raised hackles, probably wondering if Goldie was going to peck her or not. Then the funniest thing happened. Goldie was sitting diagonally, taking up the whole box. Raven inched her way in and then began circling, scratching at the floor and clucking and putting her head underneath Goldie, alternately here, alternately there, her head would poke up underneath Goldie’s wing, then she’d look like she was almost on top of Goldie. Goldie wouldn’t budge and stood her brooding ground. However, little by little, Raven physically pushed Goldie from a diagonal position to a vertical position, pushing her to the opposite side of the box so that Raven could nestle in as well. Now the two of them, one Gold, one Black lay packed in like sardines, side by side, two little Bantam sisters, giving each other moral support for the task that lay ahead. At one point, I intervened and picked Goldie up and lifted her out of the box. This seemed to upset Raven and she jumped down and started her fretting all over again, running every which way inside the run. Eventually, I walked away because it looked like Raven was looking for a “secret” place to lay her egg. Goldie jumped back up into the box, Raven jumped in behind her and I went in out of the heat to await the results.
A little while later, I peeked out to see Raven jumping down but Goldie still in the box. When I got out there, Goldie was sitting in the middle of the box, all puffed out. On a hunch, I lifted her up to find her sitting on Raven’s second white egg. I suppose if I had taken all of Goldie’s eggs away, Raven was going to produce some for her to sit on anyway. The egg is amazingly large for such a small bantam chicken.
This morning while I waited on the arrival of the second egg, I came in and made scrambled eggs with feta cheese, using three small bantam eggs and said a little “thank you” to Goldie who supplied them. It never ceases to amaze me, this ability to produce eggs. Now to Goldie’s 17 eggs, I can add 2 from Raven. I wonder in a year’s time, how many eggs the girls will have produced??? Now, who will be next? My bet is on Ellie. All is good in the world.....
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