----- Original Message -----
From: "ginny wilken"
> My Banties have both taken to covering, very aggressively, everything the
> big hens lay.

LOL...reminds me of "back when."  Banties are great little mothers and
wannabe surrogate mothers.  I had one who kept a jealous eye on the turkey
eggs.

I  don't remember any of my backyard birds of any breed getting  fat or
thin, with one exception:  The hen my husband bush-hogged over.  Really.
She'd made her nest in some underbrush near the house.  Not a feather was
damaged, but she was never mentally the same after that.  She abandoned that
nest and made one in the deep recesses of the dark under the house.  She
really did just practically wither away.

I have Dash, my other Lovebird hen, on diet and exercise right now because
she got so fat while nesting.  Ironically, I was initially afraid she'd die
from not eating, and indeed she appeared to lose weight at first.  Then it
was like some kind of parrot fat fairy visited her and the grams piled on.

It occurs to me that the differences we've observed in nesting birds may
correlate with the fact that chickens are domesticated whereas emus and
lovebirds are wild.

Theola