Oh Cordelia.....

Cordelia came here about four years ago when a friend of a friend was downsizing her poultry numbers. A large black hen with ruffles of feathers around her face she constantly looks shocked as if someone has just told her a dirty joke and she doesn't quite approve. Not only that she lays green eggs. People usually go "yuk" at the mention of this despite my explaining that it's only the shells that are green, inside the eggs are perfectly normal. Someone told me Cordelia was probably an Araucana but she certainly doesn't resemble any pictures I've found. Even so when she's in a laying mood she presents me with a green egg nearly every day.

This week Cordelia went broody. She sits silently in the nestbox trying to hatch whatever egg someone else happens to lay there. This is a nice change from the bantams who sneakily lay their eggs in remote places and then one day just disappear, turning up three weeks later with a new family. To celebrate Cordelia's maternal feelings a friend is going to collect half a dozen Barnevelder eggs from his neighbour "Peter Goat" and drive out Monday so we can pop them under her. At the moment I am trying to leave her alone with her one egg so she doesn't go off the boil.

Apparently Barnevelders lay brown speckled eggs but aren't as prolific layers as the brown shavers. I told my friend "well my shavers have only just started to lay again after a year" to which he replied "yes but your shavers are on crutches" referring to their advanced years! Poor old girls would be mortified to hear themselves being so disparagingly spoken of. In their small chicken minds they're still young pullets.........