Religious freedom among chickens

The girls seem to have changed their minds (?) on when to take their sabbath. Every Sunday for the last month they have reduced their output to exactly 17, from the usual 20-21 a day. Not this week. They chose Saturday this week, putting out only 15, and today, Sunday they were up to 20 again. Have they switched to the Jewish sabbath? Are they responding to the approach of the full moon, which is a blue moon? Who knows. Esmeralda chose to lay her egg today in the very back of her box, where I finally looked near dark. I was wishing I were much younger as I wrestled it out of the box without falling on the poop she leaves on top of the box (her roost). The egg today is almost white, little blue in it. Did she give the blue to the moon? Neither of the other two Araucanas laid at all today. Clearly there has been a cosmic shift of some sort. Can't wait until tomorrow.

I think it is time to return Esmeralda to the flock. Since I have lots of time tomorrow and most of the next few days to watch things, and Wendy and Matt can be around also, as well as Frank, I think we can keep an eye on them to see what they do with her. We will need to send her in with some Vicks on her wound. Hopefully it will deter Pete as well as the pecking hens while she finds her place in the order of things again. The wound is right where Pete lands when he is jumping on the hens and doing his rooster thing, which has been the concern as far as returning her. She seems quite healthy and otherwise could have gone back some time ago.

The timer system in the coop seems to be working well. With the lamp going on over the water at 3 AM, the water is not freezing and the hens get a good start on laying. It means there are quite a few already by the time we get out there to let them out. I let them out of the pen for awhile today, but they got bored quickly. The good compost is now in a closed bin for the winter. So they returned to the pen on their own for some scratch, with no argument.

Peggy for the recovery room staff