Now that the nest boxes are in place, I’m anxious that our hens (we’re still hoping for no crowers) lay eggs in them, and not random corners in the coop (or heaven forbid outdoors!). To encourage them to lay in the nest boxes we’re going the fake egg route. We have heard a fake egg (or any appropriately egg-shaped-sized object) provides the suggestion that here is a good place to lay that thing you don’t understand you’re about to lay.

I’ve heard of plastic eggs, wooden eggs, even golf balls. Well, I don’t have any of those things, and don’t want to buy them. What I do have is clay and handy hands. So I decided to make my own fake eggs. This decision was inspired by the ceramics class I’m taking in which the newbies are making hollow objects like pumpkins and rattles.

So I took two balls of clay, shaped them into half-spheres, filled them with paper-wrapped little clay balls for fun, and mended them together. This is really fun cause now you have a malleable ball filled with air. After mending the two halves together, I patted the balls with a wooden spatula into an egg shape. When I was sure I was done I made a small hole so air can escape when they fire. After making two eggs I got the idea to put faces on them. This was irresistible and so very fun.

So now I’m off to ceramics class to fire my eggs. Next week I’ll glaze them, and hopefully have them in the nest boxes before the gals start to get that urge…

Rocky on the window sill outside Scott’s office

The shingled coop!

See how the ceramic eggs turned out!