Penny and Patty...and Penny's first egg

At 7 am it is a very cool 62 degrees according to my porch thermometer.  The sun is shining and the sky is clear.  We are heading for the mid 80's again with a heat index of 89 today.  Fall is only here in the early part of the morning....the afternoons are still in summer.  I almost turned the A/C back on yesterday because of the humidity.

The new hens are having a rough time with Piggy and Red.  When I took them back to the coop yard last night it was just before the others went to roost.  I had to stay in the yard with them in order to keep Piggy and Red from ganging up on just one...Brats!  I finally told Barney to take the girls to the house and told the girls to go...they did.  Penny and Patty were so fixated on the feed that was still scattered, that they continued scratching for another good ten minutes before they noticed the hateful ones were no longer in the yard.  The two of them hoped up on the roost pole to get comfortable, as the remnants of the sunset glowed in the sky.  Barney came out, jumped on the roost pole with them for a few minutes and then returned to the coop.  A few minutes later, Patty hopped down and into the lion's den she went....saw her bounce across the inside and heard a slight scuffle before things settled down...Penny hopped down and went in just before we lost the last bit of pink in the skiy.  Smart girl, wait until the wicked witches settle down.  Piggy used to have to do that with Red...wait until she dozed off before trying to get comfortable herself.

This morning, it began again.  They weren't out for long before Red and Piggy began double teaming Patty.  Biting with a vengence and trying to pluck her shoulder feathers.  I let them try for fifteen minutes before I decided to take Patty and Penny to the garden.  They don't need plucked by the hateful ones!

Before I took them to the coop last night, Penny had laid....WOWSERS!!!  After seeing Red's normal size eggs.. this one looked like a duck egg in comparison.  That's the size eggs I'm looking for!!!  Nice almost round brown egg and fairly hefty.  Piggy should be laying this size by now.  I don't want to disrupt the laying, but I'd really prefer it if they'd lay them in the coop instead of my having to go search every inch of the garden area.  Hubby has said he will build me a shelter nest box for the garden.  But this just so sucks because the coop is plenty large enough for a total of five chickens. I understand that they are just establishing their 'pecking order' but no sense in being viscious!  Barney is just way too small to interfere...all the girls are way bigger than he is.