Ed,

Thanks for the pointer to the interesting little story ... it triggered 
my memories a bit about how/why my grand-parents were using the 
blown-milk-glass-eggs. There seems to be a hard-to-vanquish-myth, today, 
that the eggs were used to "induce," or to get non-laying hens to begin 
laying, or somehow to magically enhance production of more eggs among a 
brood of laying hens. It is widely agreed that a laying hen is very 
simple-minded (and to use a very human term "lazy") creature, and will 
drop her egg at the first opportune spot that is judged safe; it is 
especially judged "safe" IF she spies that an egg has ALREADY been 
safely deposited there (this is doubtlessly the dinosaur nesting gene 
being expressed).

I don't believe such muddled-magico-mythological thoughts about 
enhancing production ever crossed my grand-parents (Pentecostal) minds 
(unless in an INVERSE sense, that of avoiding loss). I do seem to 
remember they tended to keep one egg in each nest box in an attempt to 
try to distribute the hens (and their clutches of eggs) more evenly 
spaced over the whole line of boxes in the coop, and the purpose thereby 
being to avoid the hens fighting each other over the first box as they 
entered the door (and the resulting damage to some of the eggs that 
would inevitably get flung from the box during the fights, or get broken 
or scratched-up from the mad scrambling of mad-hens' clawing feet trying 
to evict one another from the nest).

Did you notice the story ends with a convenient Amazon link where you 
can purchase the modern ceramic chicken-egg-sized decoys (2 for $6) ? In 
any case, I've since spoken to an old friend in east Texas (who used to 
raise chickens & sell eggs, commercially, and still has a few free-range 
chickens "running around the yard" ... "for old-times-sakes" [as pets], 
and to provide fresh eggs for his visiting grandkids' breakfasts ... "if 
you can find where they've hidden their eggs, before the snakes do ...") 
... who tells me that there is also made a somewhat cheaper plastic 
Chinese import ... but it is an inferior product and should be avoided 
... doesn't work for some reason ... both chickens AND snakes are leery 
of them ! He opined that it must be something about the SMELL or TASTE 
of the plastic as they seem to look, feel, and weigh the same as the 
ceramic eggs. "Chickens seem to avoid them; snakes too." IMO, his 
well-known bias against Chinese-imports MAY be coloring his 
observations/opinions regarding the efficacy of the plastic eggs ... I 
have watched enough YouTube videos to convince myself that many Texas 
rat-snakes aren't as discriminating /epicures/ as the ones reported 
harassing my friend, and find the plastic models (as long as they are 
the same weight as a real egg) just-as-convincing-dupes as the ceramic ones.

Regards,
Bob Skiles

On 8/7/2015 1:24 PM, Ed Otter wrote:
> http://thewannabehomesteader.com/how-to-get-your-chickens-to-lay-in-all-their-nest-boxes/
>    
> I guess grandpop didn't care where his chickens laid eggs
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Keith Doms" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Friday, August 7, 2015 2:08:19 PM
> Subject: Glass egg
>
> Hello,
>                  We recently discovered a blown milk glass egg.   It appears to be a dummy egg that was used it encourage chickens to lay.  My informants tell me that door knobs and darning eggs were also used.  It comes from a midden that dates between 1880 and 1910.  The little research I have been able to do has not answered the following questions.  1. When did they start making blown eggs?  2. How far did the practice of artificial eggs to induce laying go back? 3.  Does anyone know of an advertisement for these things.
>
> Keith R. Doms
> Newlin Grist Mill
> Site Manager
> 219 S. Cheyney Rd.
> Glen Mills, PA  19342
> (610) 459-2359
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>