Hello! I haven't been in this forum in a while, but I recently had some funny experiences with my one Barred Rock hen, "Gretchen", and felt the need to share. Gretchen is about 7 months old and is very curious and funny. Our chicken coop is a little barn, and when you walk in the front door, there is a smallish area before their pen starts, where I can move about.....We have their feed bins, some tools like shovels and such, etc. Along the one end of their inside pen, are four nest boxes. Dh designed it, so that I can walk over to this plywood "wall", and drop down this long door that exposes the nest boxes, for easy egg gathering. Well I had left it open the other night, not realizing it. This means that any chicken can hop up into a nest, then hop down into the part of the barn where *I* do my thing. So I go out there recently and see what I did, realizing that some chicken, or my one pigeon has probably been out in the barn wandering around, as I see poop everywhere! Well as I do a head count, I notice that Gretchen is MIA! To my right, are our two metal garbage cans, and I am usually too lazy to put the lids down all the way, I just rest them on the top of the cans. I noticed that the one can's lid, was upside down. Suspicious as I don't ever do that, I lift the lid, and there is Gretchen, down in the garbage can, standing on scratch grains, a scooper, plus a bag of bread! She wasn't the least bit upset, just looked at me as if to say, "Hey, how's it going??". So I pick her up out of there, and she left behind, not only some poop (as to be expected), but she laid an egg while she was in there!!

But that is not the end of it. I go out again recently, and open the inside pen door, to feed and water everyone and toss in some bread. Gretchen comes out by my feet as she often does, to snoop around or she'll eat snow off of my boots. I see her begin to eye up the garbage can lids again, and she proceeds to jump up on one of them. She kept looking on the floor behind the garbage cans, trying to figure out how to get back there. I finally figured it out----she wanted to try to find a place to lay an egg, as the nest boxes currently are out of nesting material. But as she scooted and scampered around on the lid, of course, the lid flips, and down she goes again! The lid was slightly ajar and you could see her little head peeking out. Well I just thought she looked so gosh darn cute that I had to go get my camera. So I go get my camera, which only took a few minutes, including stopping to tell DH the tale. When I get back, snap some pics, and go to get her outta the can, lo and behold, there was an egg again!!!

This is why I love chickens! I have included some pics---I hope you enjoy them, and with my limited pc knowledge, I hope that the pics are here, and not some dang red x or something! (If for some reason, you can't see them, go to my page----there is a link to my pics). Have a good one!

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