Eighteen eggs for the week. A couple of two egg days and a zero egg day took the total down.

The delivery of the yolk seemed to be an isolated incident, and nobody on the Backyard Chicken board seemed upset or emergent by it, which confirmed my suspicions - this is just something that happens from time to time.

This week I put a board up on the top of the nest boxes at about a forty-five degree angle to try and keep some of the pullets from perching on top of it (and leaving piles of by-product behind), but it didn't seem to do the trick... yet. When I closed up the coop last night there were 4 or 5 of the regulars on top of the new addition, trying valiantly to hang on.

Other news from the week in chickens. I found out that Roger is going to be a good rooster when he finishes coming of age. I picked up one of the White Rocks to get it used to be handled and she put up a big squawk. It wasn't a minute before Roger showed up at the coop door, eyeing me suspiciously and attempting a low scolding tone.

As for the other roos, well, Rocky is small and bedraggled and at the bottom of the pecking order. Jean Bob is coming along nicely size and feather-wise, but shows no other roosterly traits. He seems to be almost the fop of the barnyard (perhaps the curse of a French name). He's almost like the Sir Percy Blakeney of the barnyard. I can only hope that Jean Bob has an equally exciting secret life.

A couple of the Reds decided to start laying in the hanging nest boxes this week - maybe their space on the floor was getting too crowded. Another one decided to start laying in the tack room, which is where all the gear for my daughter's harness goats is kept, along with the animal feed.

I solved this problem on Saturday by using a trick I'd learned with Mildred. While I was working, one of the Reds made her way in to the corner where we'd found eggs three days this week. She settled in to deposit an egg, so I let her go for a few minutes and went to put a fresh egg into one of the nest boxes. Then I picked up the hen and moved her to the coop, inside that same box. Later in the day, two eggs, one of which was my plant.

This morning on checking: two eggs. Seems one of the other Reds decided that this particular box was a great place to lay.

I don't know if this trick of moving them when they're getting ready to lay works for everyone, but it's certainly worked well for me.

Ahead: summer kicks into full gear, and waiting to see which of the roos will start crowing first.