I’m not naive enough to believe that our hens lay eggs out of some touching avian fondness for the people who house, feed and care for them. They seem to like us well enough - they respond positively to being talked to, for example. But when they lay, they’re simply following a biological imperative, even if reproduction is not in the cards. We don’t have a rooster, so their eggs are not fertile.
Still, there’s no denying that “the girls” are troopers in the laying department. Regardless of the season or the weather, Nala and Snow have been producing eggs with amazing regularity, ever since we bought the two of them (and their recently-deceased coop mate Stella) back in April of last year.
Sure, they aren’t laying quite as often now as they did during the summer, but that's to be expected. Shorter days mean less light, which translates into fewer eggs. (Unless a coop has artificial lighting, which ours does not.) Yet as I’ve mentioned before in this space, even at their reduced rate Snow and Nala are producing more eggs than we had expected to get during the winter months.
So although I suspect that it’s probably a meaningless gesture as far as the hens are concerned, I’ve taken to giving them a grateful “thank you” whenever I retrieve a freshly laid egg from their nest box. It may sound silly, but to me, it seems like the polite thing to do.
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