Confessions of an Egg Eater

Hello my name is Charlotte and I eat my own eggs.

There you have it. I am hoping that Charlotte may begin her long road of recovery now that she has had the courage to face her problem.

We are not sure when Charlotte's affliction began. It may actually be the reason that I found this little chicken cold and hungry standing on the side of a lonely stretch of country road. Or the extreme stress of that abandonment itself may have caused Charlotte's current behaviour. After all, people can be cruel. It amazes me that people view dumping kittens, dogs and apparently chickens on the side of forested backcountry road as a viable solution to their problem. They are cowards! And these poor little creatures are courage themselves. A starving Willie Nelson came to our family out of the trees after being dumped on the roadside. And Charlotte wears the vestiges of her battles including chunks of feathers out of her chest and chomped off tail feathers. I well remember her frozen little feet too as she stood in the snow tucking first one foot into her feathers and then another. So with that in mind it seems rather reasonable that Charlotte has resorted to eating her own eggs. Whether it is a result of being dumped on the side of a road or the cause of being dumped on the side of a road matters not to us. We have decided to rally around our Charlotte and support her through her steps of recovery.

Initially we skipped step one...admitting to the problem. You see Charlotte has laid a lot of eggs and we have not eaten a single one. So early this morning upon the discovery of another consumed egg in the nest, Charlotte and I had a wee beak to face discussion. A lot of clucking happened and I chose to believe it was Charlotte pouring out her heart and being utterly disconsolate about eating that egg...I may be wrong. But I did declare to her 'Charlotte you are an egg eater and you need to admit to this problem' and she did cluck back at me. So step 1 done.

Step 2 was to place golf balls in her nesting boxes. The idea here is that she will try to eat these 'eggs' and hurt her beak peeking at them thus discouraging her from pecking at other eggs. Upon the discovery of another eaten egg this morning we have moved along quite briskly to the next step.

Step 3 is to fill an empty egg with mustard and dish soap. Apparently chickens despise mustard...and dish soap. John was rather excited about this step as it afforded him the opportunity to relive his glory days as a magician. This morning he eagerly put pin holes in an egg to blow the contents out while excitedly sharing his past experiences with hollow eggs and handkerchiefs and magic shows while I feigned interest. Really I was just relieved that I did not have to blow that goop out of the egg. So now the 'loaded' egg has been placed in the nest waiting for Charlotte to take a taste.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that this next step ends Charlotte's affliction because then we can get more chickens. You see chickens are social chatty little critters and Charlotte will eagerly share her habit with all of her new friends. So afflicted Charlotte must face and beat this habit so we can get this coop rocking. I told Charlotte this morning that she is welcome here at our abode where none of us is perfect. We are a menagerie of creatures that limp and gimp along with our deaf ears, infected eyes, bad habits and weight problems...just to mention a few of the human issues.When we add the pets into the mix we really become a circus and Charlotte dear you now have a starring role.  From our rather precarious perches of imperfections, we are rooting for you!