Clever little hen

Our brand new hens have been with us for exactly a week. They were bought as point of lay pullets - and so that turned out to be.

They have themselves well and truly organised in their new coop - currently inside a building because the weather has been so fowl (geddit?!). They all now roost on the perch (which seems obvious but not all chickens know about perches. Some insist on roosting on the floor. Silly birds.)

Over the past couple of days it's been clear that one of them was about to lay her first egg. She'd been making the hay in the next box into a nice, comfy bowl-shaped nest, the strands of hay neatly arranged into the shape of the underside of a hen.

Then this morning, an egg. Small, but perfectly formed. (It's the one on the left, the one on the right is from one of mum's Bluebells.) It's obviously a trainer egg and this time there haven't been any soft-shelled or misshapen practice eggs first.

Clever little hen.

It reminds me of this little ditty by the very prolific 'Anonymous':

The codfish lays ten thousand eggs, the homely hen lays one.

The codfish never cackles to tell you what she's done.

And so we scorn the codfish, while the humble hen we prize.

Which only goes to show you that it pays to advertise.