This Blog is back, with another Chook story!

Those of you who have read previous Blogs will remember this set of beautiful poultry.
Who can forget? (Auction Blog was posted on September 11th)
We bought these 3 White Sussex Bantams at the Stanthorpe Poultry Auction.....1 rooster, and 2 hens.
They settled in quite well with our other two chooks....brown(of course!) Isa Browns.
The pecking order seemed to be solved relatively painlessly.

But do you also remember that these three roost in the branches of the chook-yard tree every night? No sleeping in the man-made roost with the brown hens. No sir. Up in the tree.
(There were 2 photos of them "up a tree" postedright at the end of September 24th's  Blog.)

Well, last week, for about a 4 days, we "lost" one of the White Sussex hens.
She wasn't there at dusk, when the other two had flown up into their tree perch.
She wasn't in the man-made roost with the browns.

Had she become a meal for the local foxes, or the local quolls? 
Either was possible.
We searched high and low for 4 days, wandering about the farm making soft "chook chook" noises in the hope of her mistaking us for fellow birds, and answering us!
Honestly, how optimistic was that? (Or maybe, how stupid??)

On day 5 we found her. 

 
What made us lift the vines of the creeper covering the old tank stand I don't know, but we were probably desperate, and looking in as many 'impossible" places as we could think of.
There she was, tucked away in such a glorious hiding spot.

Why? 
She is sitting on an egg. ONE lonely egg. She is clucky.

It must be a very safe spot for her, because she is at ground level, and sits there day and night. Night is usually when the predators are about.
She has not been discovered.
The foxes and quolls obviously can't see her, but I wonder why they haven't smelt her???

We hope that the egg is fertile. 
We also feel that one chicken may be a bit lonely, so we have managed to slip two other eggs underneath her...much to her annoyance, I might add. She pecks at your hands when you dare to invade her hatching space!

The incubation time for chickens is 21 days.
Keep your fingers crossed for us, and for her. I hope that she has not sat there for all this time for a nil/zero/negative outcome.

I will keep you posted!