Photo by Elizabeth Raley Osterberger
Meet Trish, a Rhode Island Red who lives in our side yard. She was one of four chicks who came home with me in March. While we were out of town in April, they escaped from the coop, and Trish was the only one wily enough to escape Maggie the Boxer. We came home to carnage: Little bird bodies scattered everywhere. And that was the end of Linda, Heidi and Terri.
Trish has the personality of her namesake. She is smart and chatty, but definitely has an attitude. She laid her first egg, appropriately, on Labor Day, and every day since. Well, every day except Sunday. Trish observes the Sabbath.
She tends to lay eggs at 10 a.m. I looked in the coop just before the magic time this morning and there was no egg, and Trish was nowhere to be found. I went back inside the garage to get her more water, and when I came back, there was an egg in the coop. It was like a drive-by laying.
I collected it and was a little weirded out: The egg was warm. I knew it would be, but it was still a little gross.
Up next: I’ll explain why I wanted chickens in the first place.
Observe and report 