Duds.

I'm a frustrated chicken keeper. I've had three chickens since the beginning of summer, and they haven't laid *ONE* egg. Well, I take that back. I first got my little Della from the pound, and she laid three eggs when I first got her. She's a bantam, which is chicken talk for a midget, and her eggs were so little! So cute! But then I got two more chickens in mid-June, two pullets, which is chicken talk for an adolescent. I wasn't expecting them to lay at first, because they hadn't hit chicken puberty yet. I don't know if there's a chicken word for puberty. So I wait. And wait and wait. In the meantime, Della is on strike from egg laying and has become the queen of the pecking order, quite the little beyotch! She pesters those sweet girls all day long!

So I've been waiting for almost four months now, and they still haven't laid any eggs. No eggs. None. I've given them several nesting boxes around the run (that's chicken talk for their yard). I've planted decoy eggs in the boxes to trick them into egg mode. I've put in fresh, new straw, and I've hidden one of the boxes in the brush for privacy. NADA! NOTHING! I think I have three duds.

As far as the coop goes, they've been very happy in the coop that Daniel and I built in June. But they've been in the exterior part the whole time - it's more like a screened in porch than a coop. A beach house, a summer home, a camper... the shed that is their coop-to-be still needs to be furnished inside with a roost - that's chicken talk for a perch - and some nesting boxes, and eventually I want to put in a window, paint the interior, etc. But for immediate purposes, I need to build the roost! If it doesn't rain on Sunday, that's my plan.