You may remember Petronella, our hen of thatch-skiing fame. She started us in the chicken farming adventure, and now we have added three other hens and a rooster. We have a small chicken house in the back yard where Petronella literally rules the roost. I have a new understanding of the term "pecking order" after watching her in action.
The chicken house has five nesting boxes, but all the hens were laying their eggs in just one particular nest. Our Zambian friends explained that we must leave a couple of eggs in that nest each day to encourage the hens to keep laying, and we were following those instructions--until last week. That's when Petronella decided that she was going to sit on the eggs and hatch them. She steadfastly took over that nest. The other hens managed to continue laying their eggs when she got off to feed, but we knew something had to give when we found Petronella and one of the other hens both sitting in the nest, and neither one was happy.
We got Petronella off long enough to take four of the ten eggs and place them in the next nesting box. We're hoping that the other hens will get the message and move to that box to lay their eggs so Petronella can continue her nesting vigil. We'll keep you posted.
David & Linda Gregersen.
About Us
- David and Linda Gregersen
- Mount Vernon, Missouri, United States
- My husband and I lived at Namwianga Mission in Zambia for five years from 2005 until April, 2010. This blog began as a chronicle of our time there. We are now back in the United States and living in Mt. Vernon, Missouri. I am still connected with the work at Namwianga and still post now and then about something related to Namwianga or Africa, and sometimes a personal update.
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