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When I was small, cornstalks were harvested after cobs.
They were dried and piled high everywhere in the
village and mainly for fuel through the winter. We kids
found the piles a great playground. We digged holes and
made our hideouts in them. These secret places became
inevitably strategic in war games. It was quite fun.
Some observant comrade found out other critters made
dwellings in the piles too. Some chickens, for example,
came under a pile and made a nest. Chickens were a lot
like kids in the village. They were free to go anywhere
during the day and only had to go back to their nests,
usually in the family front yards, to sleep at night.
They usually went to home nests to lay eggs, of course,
and this was where the discovery of nests in the
cornstalk piles became valuable.
Soon, some smart mates came up with the idea to put a
couple of eggs in these nests in the piles, as a decoy.
The plan was ingenius as it was the nature of the birds to
follow precedents. We made nests for them, too. The
plot was replicated in carefully chosen piles and
before long we started to collect eggs laid by the
village chickens.
This did not last long, however, like many such brilliant
schemes. The adults noticed and the secret got out. We
were duely chided and had to look elsewhere for fun.
Indeed we lived in the rural north. Chickens were not known for their intelligence. Not in my village ;-) But I made it sounded too easy in the post. It was actually more work and patience. We did pull it off, though.
You are lucky to be able to raise chickens here and even smart ones ;-) My yard is too small and the city doesn't allow it.