Pecking flapper

Before I get to the story about our "pecking flapper," here are some our chicken happenings lately:

• We have found only one egg not in the nesting box, it was in the garden.  For the most part they have been really good about leaving the eggs in the box.
• One day I found a completely broken egg outside of the nesting box, but I could only see the gooey insides, no shell to be found anywhere.  Does that mean they ate it?  I think my Hubby mentioned that could happen.  Don't know, I'll have to read up on it.  It was just strange.  Hasn't happened again though.
• We are up to about 4 eggs a day!  Which means they are finally all laying.  
• We have pretty much figured out which eggs come from which chicken.  The lightest ones come from the barred rock.  The most speckled ones come from the Rhode Island red, and the medium brown ones come from the 2 Goldens.  
• We came out one day to find 2 hens in the nesting box.  One was sort of on top of the other.  Guess it's time for another nesting box!  We currently only have one.  It was pretty funny to see them laying like that, and that they were okay with that.

 Okay, now for pecking Flapper.  Flapper is one of our Golden sex links.  She has gotten a little snippy a few times, especially at the baby.  I think it's because he's small, she doesn't really peck at anybody else unless they are bothering her, which is where our story comes in.  (Although she has pecked my toes a few times as well.)  Anyway, Aaron was holding her one day, and she pecked him right by the eye.  He didn't like that, and decided it was time for Flapper to become dinner.  We sometimes joke about it, but that isn't our plan with these chickens.  We have them for pets and eggs.  Well, he wasn't joking.  He was crying, and saying he didn't want to keep Flapper anymore.  Especially since she has gotten the baby too.  We've had to convince him to give Flapper lots of space, and realize that just because a chicken or anything makes a mistake especially over and over again that we should keep forgiving them.  So, we've learned that flapper is a little pecker, and we have to keep a close eye on her.  Hoping she doesn't get any worse about pecking, but we'll see. 

Now for some cute pictures...

This is lemonade enjoying her free range in the yard


This is black beak. She is our biggest.

Alex enjoying the chickens before he got scared of flapper pecking him.  Although he still runs after them, and lets them out of their coop anytime he is outside and they aren't already out.  He isn't really too scared I guess.

He loves trying to pick them up.

I think this may be flapper...

I've been keeping up with eating the eggs so far.  I am definitely eating them a lot more often.  They are delicious.  It's fun to keep count too.  We are up to 82.  I still can't believe we are already up there!

Bach! Bach!

Desiree