We have eggs!

Big news is happening again at our house. I now have 3 hens.... and two of them, Gunery and Jumery are laying eggs proudly each morning in our guard shack. This event has been long awaited since I first acquired the chicks from a friend in August. Everyone thought I was nuts to want chickens again, especially for their eggs and not their meat. The rooster has been kept off the property, as least that is what they say. The eggs are beautiful brown and the darkest yellow yolk! I love baking and cooking with them, you know what they have been eating and I know how old they are. One of our youngest guards Aruna has taken a special interest in the hens (thus there names). I tease him that he is their momma as the come when he calls. The hens prefer to eat raw rice. I have been trying to implement a few things like legumes, cracked corn and cracked wheat but these chickens are Indian Chickens and seem to have different tastes and aren't sure what to think of these different foods. My dilemma was where are these chickens going to lay their eggs? I tried to explain to them what a nesting box was and when Raj said he could build one for 20o rupees I was ecstatic! Then one night he called Sundar and asked to be picked up at the bus stop, I think he lives near the bus stop and hope he didn't ride the bus with the chicken house. Oh wait, I was thinking nesting box but instead I got a chicken house. It is really just like a small doghouse but it works great. The only problem was it has some slits in the roof (okay more than a few) so they proceeded to take some plastic advertising signs of some trees on our street. So now our chicken house is also a advertisement for Wavetel, I wonder if they will get paid for the advertising? The chickens don't go in by themselves yet but the guards round them up and close them in for the night. They still lay there eggs in the guard shack in a plastic box lined with paper.