These three precious eggs certainly made it through an ordeal in the coop this morning! I hurriedly started to clean out the chicken coop, hoping to get it done before the rains came. I didn't bother to check the laying boxes as our morning layers don't usually find their ways to them until 10 a.m.; however, I managed to forget that we never checked the boxes last night as we had arrived home fairly late to lock everyone up. Swearing as we nestled down in bed last night that we'd remember to gather them in the morning, here I was in the morning, cleaning the coop...
In went the hoe. Out it went. Bumping against every board in the coop to make sure all the hay, shavings and "free manure" were finding their way out of every crack and crevice. Whitey and Purrball, two of our farm cats, had joined me on the roof, every now and then, leaning over to peek through the open doors to see what was going on in there! The cats aren't allowed in the coop, especially when there are chickens in there, but since I locked out the chickens into their runs, I figured the cats could peek in over my head.
Soon enough I was filling waterers from our new rain barrel and the cats became more interested in sound of running water from the barrel than anything else. After a while, I went to close the doors of the coop and let the chickens back in, never having bothered to disturb the laying boxes as the hens generally keep a rather tidy nest in them. As I went to close the last door, I noticed some grayish fluff sticking out of one of the laying boxes!
Oh... NO, NO, NO! How could I have managed to not count the hens right?!
I slammed the door shut, locked it tight and nearly tore open the lid to the laying box to make sure everyone was okay in there.
Meeeeoooowwwww... oh, it's just Whitey. What, Whitey!? What are you doing in here?
Curled up in a ball in the laying box, carefully tucked underneath him, were these three eggs. Who would have thunk this morning that I would find a broody cat?
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