Detective work needed.....

We have quite a few chickens that are not laying, and they will need to be dealt with by the chicken man, however, deciding which ones is the tricky part. Last time the chicken man came, we grabbed a couple that we thought were no longer laying, only to discover they had eggs inside of them! Bad selection process!! Therefore, we need a better selection process which will ensure we choose the correct chickens.

First things first is to count the chickens, which is never an easy task, as there are so many, and some look very similar to others. Its like trying to identify a set of twins, which only a mother can do that correctly. My friend has twins and I identified them as red shorts and blue shorts for months as I couldn't tell them apart, so there was no hope for brown chickens.

I needed to devise a plan to catch the chickens that are laying, and detective work was essential, I had watched enough episodes of Scooby Doo to master the perfect sneak technique. However, the chickens seemed to be all ganging up on me and every time I went to the nesting boxes there were eggs but no chickens.

I waited for the cries of "I have laid an egg" rushed down, camera in hand to discover eggs but no hens! The few chickens that I had found in the boxes I had simply annoyed with my nest box paparazzi antics,  and they got out of the boxes and left before laying their eggs! CCTV was my next thought, however, I don't think my husband will be ecstatic about installing CCTV to watch chickens laying their eggs! We watch some really C**p programmes on the TV but that would be going a step too far!

So, back to the drawing board, and guess work may be needed, or I leave them all and moan about the feed bill and the lack of eggs! Lets see if the chicken man has some old Spanish tradition about knowing which chickens are laying!!