Nesting

Let me give you a little background from the past week - 
Sunday night, Roxanne, the woman who boards her horses behind our house, came to our door with a coffee can full of eggs.  Evidently, the girls had been laying their eggs in the horses' hay in the barn.  Ryan and I had been wondering if they had been laying eggs outside of the coop, as we seemed to only get one egg each day (which seemed a little too...coordinated?!..shall we say, for our chickens).  

So I was distraught. 
The nail-biting and lip-chewing commenced.  
Why didn't they want to lay in their home??  

I felt like Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore...
"Are you too good for your Hooommmee??"  

Ryan and I pondered.  And we deliberated.  And then it struck me - they hadn't had a chance to make the laying boxes (which we had recently added) home.  Many a' pregnant woman can tell you - the nesting instinct can be strong.  Who wants to bring home their child (or in our case, their precious egg) to a unprepared, muddled mess??  

So Ryan stuffed the laying boxes with even more straw and we left the girls in the coop for two days straight.  They needed some concentrated time to make these boxes "home".  And nesting they did! 

So much so, in fact, that the second day this is what Ryan found - 

THREE EGGS IN THE SAME NEST!!! Evidently, there had been some competition for this particular box.  Everyone wants the corner lot, I guess.

And today, this is what I came home to - 

An egg (or two) in three out of the four laying boxes!!  

That goes to show - with a little nesting...a little effort to make one's environment "home"...we can let down our guard, and eggs, to relax in comfort and familiarity.