Eggs....

You must have so many eggs, is a statement that people say to me all of the time, but in reality my egg numbers increase and decrease on a daily basis. Like many I believed that you simply give a chicken a box and it will lay, however, this in reality is very different. Chickens are so temperamental, and anything can stop them laying. This includes:

• Too hot
• Too cold
• Stress
• Different bedding
• Different food
• Not enough food
• Too much food
• Illness
• New chickens
• Noise
• Predators
• Broody
• Molting
• Eat eating....the list just goes on and on, and to be honest I'm amazed that we get a single egg as most of these things happen daily here in casa chaos

I was reading tips on how to increase egg production and one lady claims that if you place curtains on your nesting boxes, the chickens will lay more. Now I'm not sure if this is insane or pure genius! the theory is that the curtains make the box cosy, warm and out of view. However, surely the reality is that the curtains simply produce more things to wash/clean and maintain.

When you Google curtains for chickens there are 140,000 hits, therefore, this is a popular subject it seems. Now there is a huge part of me that considers this to be a stupid idea, but a very small part that so wants curtains on my nesting boxes. So, do I spend hours sewing pretty curtains to attach to the nesting boxes hmmmmmm well I will add it to the to do list and see how far I get with everything else!