“Cluck – cluck – cluck…” goes the broody hen. If the weather is good I open the door of her broody box, and after a minute she makes a big squawking show of taking a walk.
She flaps her wings, she charges other chickens and pecks them into submission (or avoids being pecked in turn by higher-ups), she rips at a fallen plant, she takes a dust bath. Oh, and empties her much-backed-up bowels. Impressive.
Then she goes back into the broody box, “Cluck – cluck – cluck…”.
Except today I lost track of her as she wandered about. I trusted her to take care of business and return to her eggs. Once before she walked in to the coop where she grabbed a snack and came back out. Today on an egg collecting round I found her sitting in one of the tiny nest boxes of the coop warming some else’s (unfertilized) eggs. Calamity Jane, you dumb cluck.
I scooped her up (“Cluck – cluck – cluck”) and delivered her to the broody box where she eagerly went to ‘her’ eggs and sat back down. I just hope her eggs didn’t get too cold. Four more days to go…
UPDATE: Hatched!