Change of tactics

Pom-Pom in her favourite place

Pom-Pom's behaviour over the past week has had us totally bewildered. 

If you remember, this is the chicken who absolutely detests laying eggs.   Her normal modus operandi has been to start grumbling (quite loudly for her size) from around 11 o'clock each morning.  She would carry on complaining, while marching round and round, until late afternoon.   Then she would rid herself of the offending egg wherever she happened to be at the time.   On one momentous occasion, she dropped her egg (literally) while she was standing on my foot!  It wasn't even too unusual for her to dispose of the distasteful item whilst still on the move!

Almost a week ago we were astonished to find one of her eggs in the nest box.  Obviously this was an oversight on her part - or so we thought.   Then blow me, we found another in the nest box two days later and a third two days after that!  And there's been no histrionics all day long, not a peep!

As if that wasn't enough of a surprise, she's changed a couple of her other habits of a lifetime too.   At bedtime, we've always had to remove her from her favoured roosting place and put her in the coop with the others.  We've found her in the tangle of honeysuckle branches or on the roof of one or other of the coops.  For some time she favoured the gate of the cage beneath the main coop.   Lately she's been nodding off on the log in the run.  But for the last three nights on the trot, we've found her inside the coop with the others, comfortably tucked up on a perch.

As if all that wasn't enough for us to contend with, she now gets up at the same time as the rest of the flock!  She may be the last one to leave the coop, but out she comes.   To be fair, she does look rather groggy as she staggers down the ramp, but there's no more of the "Don't bother me in my boudoir, it's far too early" nonsense.

We find all this somewhat disconcerting; it's not like the Pom-Pom we know and love.   Or maybe it's just that our little girl is all grown up.   Oh dear, I think I need a cup of tea while I leaf through her baby photographs.