:lol: okay, confession: I forgot to close up the pen one night last week :blushing:. At first I was sure that that happened AFTER they stopped laying, but when I thought about it more I couldn't really remember for sure. So something scaring them is certainly a plausible theory. When I do remember to lock the pen (every night except that one!), I think it's secure against things actually big enough to eat chickens, but something smaller could probably get in (it's a chain link dog pen, with hardware cloth around the bottom half and covering any gaps, aviary netting on top, and cinderblocks all around the bottom on the outside. But something that's small and can climb could get in through the chain link up high). We have dogs, but they sleep inside at night, so they're not much use for nighttime security. I could also go back to locking them in their hutch at night if we find out something's bothering them....

So if something DID scare them, what do I do about it now? How do I get them through this difficult time? A chicken therapist? Or do I just wait it out?

yeah? okay, maybe that's all it is. So--sounds like it could be any one of a bunch of things...must investigate further. I'm relieved not to have anyone say that it sounds like they're deathly ill and will keel over at any moment, at any rate :). We're going out of town in a week, and I think my brother and SIL are not going to be nearly so excited about chicken sitting for us if they're not going to get any eggs. oh well.

would they not leave a mess (at least some random eggshell) in the nesting box if they were eating them?

yep, we ordered them from Ideal. In retrospect, probably not a good idea, but they all made it okay. We check for eggs at least twice a day--not always at the same time. Usually once early to mid morning when we let them out of the coop, and then again sometime in the afternoon or early evening. The coop is a chain link dog pen with a small hutch inside it--I'm nearly sure there's not a snake hanging out in there. A rat is possible, I guess, but it would have to be really sneaky. I'm really thinking they're just not laying. We usually hear them when they lay eggs, and they've been really quiet lately. And they don't do the thing with their wings (when my leghorn went broody a little while back, I could tell she was about to start laying again because she started doing that again). Only other weird behavior is that they're sleeping in crazy places--tonight when I went out to close up the pen, only one of them was on the roosting bar; one of them was on top of the hutch, one was in the nesting box, and one was on top of the nesting box.

curry powder, eh? good to know! but, no, it's not getting cooler here yet. It's been in the 80's or 90's every day.

And nothing scared them as far as I know (this has been going on for maybe a week now). They don't, umm...seem scared.

I don't THINK they're moulting. Isn't it too early for moulting? We're in GA, so it's still very much summer here. Also, I should have mentioned, they're just 9 months old, so I was thinking they wouldn't moult until next fall? maybe?

Anyone want to brainstorm with me? I have 4, and we've gone from getting 3-4 eggs a day to one. I think it's always the same chicken laying, too. They're not broody. I've looked all over the yard, and I'm pretty sure they're not laying somewhere else (they have the run of our fenced yard most of the day). They're acting normally, aside from not laying eggs. I did notice tonight that my leghorn is keeping one eye closed a lot of the time. They aren't doing the thing where they stick their wings up when I go to pet them anymore. umm, yeah, so what's up with my girls? TIA!

well, NPR is certainly scholarly and subdued. I think it's pretty middle of the road (the news anyway), but I'm sure others will say differently. (I think one thing that's been made very clear to me over the past few days is that people have such wildly different ideas about what "bias" in the media looks like that there's very little hope of finding any sort of common ground anytime this century).

...and here's a good column by Joe Klein (formerly a big McCain supporter): http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/angry_amateurs.html

When he's reading aloud to you, you could try covering up the end of the word with your finger and uncovering it as he reads....depending on his fluency level, I guess. I've only done this with very early readers.

REALLY?! you didn't see the ABC debate then, for one thing. Or the interview he gave on Fox News. Or this interview on MSNBC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk3Rra3CgMA Those are off the top of my head and 15 seconds spent googling. He was asked about all of those things over and over again.

All of these things HAVE been talked about in the press (some of them at exhaustive length), and the people in question have answered questions about them. This is not true in Sarah Palin's case. She hasn't answered a single question. McCain selected a nearly unknown 18 month governor for his running mate less than a week ago. OF COURSE the press is going to immediately try to find out as much as possible about her. Again, I'm not defending the press for focusing on sex instead of her record. It sells. It happens. It sucks. that's fine. You don't have a problem with it. but the fact is, McCain DOES have a problem with earmarks, he's been very vocal about his problems with them, and Sarah Palin says she does, too. Her record says something else, and it's a perfectly legitimate question for her to be asked.

Certainly the fact that the press often focuses on the sensational rather than the substantive is something to be criticized. That's not what I'm objecting to. But I HAVE seen, more than once over the past few days, the McCain campaign (and people on this board) react angrily to questions about their vetting process and about her record. I've heard quite a few stories from mainstream sources about her political career. Jenny in ATL linked to one from the LA Times in this thread, in fact. This thread is ABOUT one in Time magazine.

It is not the media's job to tell happy stories about the Palin family. Frankly, I'm really surprised by the sentiment that the press has no right to question the record or credentials of someone who wants to be vice president. "Troopergate" may or may not turn out to be nothing, but I don't see how anyone can suggest that the press has no right to ask about the fact that the Republican VP candidate is under investigation by her state legislature. If that were NOT being reported in the press, THAT would be the outrage. Or that there's no reason to question the fact that she spoke out against earmarks in her first speech to the public after the VP announcement, even though she hired Wasilla's first Washington lobbyist in order to secure 11 million dollars in earmarks for her town. These are legitimate questions, and the press has a responsibility to ask them. And most of what I hear from the McCain campaign is outrage and indignation that the questions are even being asked, rather than actual answers. Sarah Palin herself has answered NO questions from the press, other than a lightweight fluff piece in People magazine.

Our house is sort of similar, except that we have 3 bedrooms upstairs and the master down. I really didn't like how much of our square footage is in bedrooms (as opposed to communal living area), so what we did was move our bedroom upstairs and turn our master into a playroom/schoolroom. We actually only use two of the bedrooms upstairs as bedrooms--the boys are all in one, the second small one is a sort of storage room/extra playroom/exercise room, and then we sleep in the biggest bedroom upstairs. It works out really well for us.

I watched the DNC on CNN (I turned to the networks at one point on Tuesday night, and they weren't even covering the convention yet). They cut off most of the speeches, but not the headliners. I don't think a comparison of cutting off Obama or Biden is apt here, since neither McCain nor Palin has spoken yet at the RNC. Did the networks cut off Joe Lieberman? Because that's the equivalent speech from last night to the ones shown in their entirety on CNN.

On The West Wing, the first lady has tons of staff! And then they have arguments with the president's staff sometimes....oh, the drama!

ooh, if Shelby Foote were alive to hear you say that.....:tongue_smilie:

AFAIK, what's been well established is that her husband was a member of the party from 1995 to 2002, and she has had some degree of involvement with them, including, at least, attending their 2000 convention.

Actually, I think the American Civil War is widely acknowledged as the exception to the rule about victors writing history. Shelby Foote might agree with me. Well, except he's dead.

Not that it has anything at all to do with this thread, but I'd be interested in your source on this. I can't find anything at all about it in my quick googling.

This was my thought, too. First I thought the environment and climate change, but then I thought the gardening and good food and supporting small, local farm angle was more happy and bi-partisan :tongue_smilie:

is what rumor?