This has been the first time in the ten years that I’ve had hens, that the girls couldn’t handle the heat and stopped laying. We went from getting 10 eggs a day to only five. The back of their coop is in the shade, but it gets sun through the windows from morning to mid-afternoon. It was hot and stuffy and humid inside. I wouldn’t want to sit there and lay an egg, either. We hung up an electric fan. Their water was the temperature of hot tea. I put ice cubes in it. I moved the garden sprinkler so that it would reach their run. They appreciated having damp earth to lie in. I pulled crabgrass and put it in their shady corner to nibble on. Still, they lost weight and stopped laying.

The weather broke this week. It has been just gorgeous here. High 70s and low humidity. I’ve been taking the hens up to the pumpkin patch where there are worms galore. They are fattening up. They’re laying again. Even got a pretty blue egg from Perrie today, and she hasn’t laid an egg for two weeks. Only the two slackers, our little bantams, aren’t laying. But that’s okay. Tweedledum is the one hen with full, show-quality feathers and a becoming plumpness. Now that it’s cooler, she’s been bobbing about, chuckling and chortling. Snowball has been underfoot. I’m sure they’re fine.