You guys know the struggle with the hawks we’ve been having here on the farm right? Well the first chicken enclosure was completed and we moved the birds into their new home as planned last weekend.

We thought we would give them a couple of days to get back to laying since they had not been doing so well with all the stress from the attacks and being on lock down. Plus they needed to get acclimated to their new environment.

I had set out their old nesting boxes, but they weren’t adhered to anything. This meant pine straw and the boxes were all over the place. It also meant empty egg shells in the coop and only a few eggs. My first thought was oh no….we have an egg eater on our hands! Then I thought well maybe they’re flipping the boxes over and cracking them then eating them. Either way, it had to stop!

I  needed a solution! Since they WERE laying, I needed to be quick about my business. It was easy to see from the colors that just about everyone was laying. So what was a chicken lady to do?

We happen to have a million, well ok not that many…. but a bunch of totes that we use around here. So I decided to use one of them to make a “temporary” nesting box. Of course I enlisted my favorite helper, Joshua and he and I set it up.

The next step was to watch. In the event that there was an egg eater, I would just keep my eye out to see who went in there when, and what the outcome was.

So throughout the day I kept checking ……

TWO girls in the box at the same time……that’s strange. Chickens like privacy when laying and if they’re disturbed they will let you and EVERYONE else know that they don’t like it.

Well I will just give them some time……

And I thought….wait are these two going broody? No this breed has never gone broody. I will check back later……..

THREE hens in the box?!?! This is too much. These girls haven’t been eating their eggs. They were waiting on a nesting box so they could lay them in a safe place. All the cackling and box sharing was because there was only ONE box.

So what was the outcome?

EGGS! Lots of them!!

That is great news and it is also good news that we have no shortage of totes!

The bad news is that I’m not sure if we will eat these eggs, sell them, or incubate them. I will have to keep you guys posted on that one.

One thing for sure is this “temporary” set up may become a permanent one! I will be making more tote boxes er um…nesting boxes tomorrow. The eggs are back and we could not be more thankful! The girls are safe. They’re comfortable and the laying season has begun.