Saturday at noon I went out to see if I could catch Mildred's egg before it froze. What I found were two small eggs - one the size of a deformed ping pong ball, the other like a misshapen pullet egg - by the door. Frozen, but not cracked. According to my wife these are soft shell eggs - Mildred is still getting used to laying eggs and came out with a couple of clunkers. I've been keeping oyster shell out so calcium shouldn't be a problem, but she still has amateur status, I guess.

This prompts the question - do hens sense when their eggs are bad or damaged? Outside of the frozen eggs (which cracked across the part resting in the straw as they froze and looked otherwise normal), every egg that was deformed or cracked I found by the door as if the chooks were rolling it out of the nest, trying to get rid of it. Maybe I'm anthropomorphising a bit too much here. I'll have to do some checking.

Sunday morning she was hiding in the next box, cooing. Bob came by and stood watch over her. No egg produced. I did go to my daughter's 4-H meeting and got a lead on a place that sells almost-ready-to-lay pullets. More investigation out that way to follow.