
This hen is driving me to madness - she is clueless, absolutely clueless, on how to build a nest.
Nevermind that her aviary home has ten different types of baskets both open and covered, out in the open and hidden in foliage, at every level from ground to ceiling. No, Kari knows better. She knows that the top of the ceiling fan's blades is a much safer place to start a family, even as every single strip of paper she sets there blows away, and the eggs laid as she crouches there at night roll to the floor in an instant.
Oh! Well then surely the top of the Java's nestbox works! Just as smooth, flat, no support! And the same thing happens.
Another week passes. She moves to a hanging flower basket, but builds no nest at all now. She lays three eggs, and over three days, loses each one over the side. She lays a fourth the next day and, without enough eggs to interest her now, eats it and moves on.
She suddenly has an epiphany! The water dish! It's 16 inches wide and over an inch deep, perfect for a nest! She piles papers into it to form a mount almost taller than the water level and sits in it, in the water!!! When the big human who knows nothing on a good nest removes this soggy heap of gross papers, she frantically runs about the ground, stuffing paper in corners on the floor, in the windowsill, in her smaller water dishes.
Seriously, this season Kari has lost at least 12 eggs because she absolutely will not accept a proper nest - the most she'll do is take soft things from them to stick around the room in places where a nest can never be made. What the heck is wrong with this bird? She literally nested in a pool of water and laid in it. :/