the right place

I found such an exciting surprise when I visited the chicken coop this morning!

Can you tell which egg was laid last?

Hint: it doesn't have any muddy footprints all over it...

The fact that all three hens are settled enough to be laying is exciting enough... but the fact that they are actually laying in the "correct spot" had me dancing next to the chicken coop.

My LSH built a most beautiful and secure chicken coop. He calls it Fort Cox; it does its job beautifully unless some idiot leaves the door wide open. It is portable, so you can move the chickens to fresh ground every few days, and even has a little built-in door for egg collection purposes, with a nest box conveniently located on the other side.

Unfortunately, our former chickens cared not a whit about our convenience. One of them laid her eggs on top of the roost box, under the eaves, requiring the use of a small ladder to check every morning. Survivor Chicken, unable to fly up there due to her missing wing, settled for the far corner of the roost box instead, not always the cleanest of spots.

When we readied the coop for its new inhabitants, we debated taking out the nest box altogether, because it was so unappreciated. We ended up leaving it in because it holds up the roosting branch (the place where they sleep most nights; you can see the end above the eggs in the first picture) and we couldn't be bothered to figure out an alternative support.

Funny that an entirely different group of animals got it, that it appealed so basically to their innate sense of "a proper place to lay an egg."