Pepper has been determinedly sitting on other people's eggs for a couple of weeks now. She would happily spend the whole day in the nest box. When the other eggs are laid though, I chuck her out.
She then squawks at me and sits tight on the run floor for a few minutes. Then when she realises the house door has been shut, she admits it's a fair cop and rushes to the feeders to tank up furiously on pellets and water. At this point, when I'm home, I let them out into their own (fenced) bit of the garden and she enjoys scratching and stuffing her beak in there with the others. She's such a little thing too and only laid for a few weeks before going on strike to go broody. Two of the older hens seem to have reached the Henopause so we aren't getting a whole lot of eggs just now!
Now we have Old and New girls laying eggs the egg-skelter looks decidedly odd! 
The very first Baby Egg turned out to be a double yolker. That reminded me that we had lots of doubles in the first season with the Rangers. Looks like more to come - no doubt they'll get bigger soon.
Ginger is the largest of the new 'black' chickens but is lighter in colour - even to the extent of a paler face - and has the most gorgeous outlined feathers. I think these blacks are a Rhode Island Red/Plymouth Rock cross but Ginger has more Rhodie genes expressed. We think she is younger than the other two - she has a paler comb and we don't think she's laying. Pepper and Nutmeg are. Don't look too closely - there's a ginger poo there too!
From the front she looks very like the red hens (apart from the baby comb!) and the red colouring goes right under her breast.
Nutty and Pep are quite dark on the backs with a lovely greenish sheen but Ginger shows markings on all her back feathers too. She's a real individual and is often perching when the others are chugging around. She does her own thing. She is more shy than the others who are now becoming very tame. They always assume you have food (why wouldn't you?)
Aunty Amber laid the one on the top left. She lays the smallest of the Big Girls' eggs. The little one top right was laid today and looks like a pigeon's egg! We know from experience they will get bigger and darker but they look so sweet when they first begin laying. Ahh!
Five relaxed together - a bit of dust-bathing - and Topaz on the left in the Sin Bin!
From front to back - here are Pepper, Nutmeg and Ginger.
This is the pen of Blacks that decided us. We chose suitable 'black' names on the way home, Jet, Ebony etc, but when we took them from their travelling boxes and they stood blinking in the weak East Yorkshire sun, they looked very varied and not entirely black so that the names didn't really suit. The one with the palest breast feathers begged to be called Ginger, the darkest became (Black) Pepper and the in betweeny became Nutmeg - so we ended up with Spice Girls rather than mysteriously Shakespearean Dark Ladies.
Sunshine today so the ladies decided to dig holes and make 'nests'. They dust bath in these, so in this weather there's a fair amount of mucky, damp soil hurled around the place.
The aim seems to be to get as much in between the feathers as possible so they do look fairly dirty when they've done. It all seems to shake off though and is evidently a very pleasurable experience. Eyes closed and all!
More 'nest' making. This heap of stuff was pulled out of a nest box that has been used by coal tits for several years. It's being moved because it's on a pole supporting next door's power line, which is being led underground now. There's blue baler twine in here along with all the dried grass.
