I have 7 hens who have access to 3 laying boxes, yet they ALL lay in ONE box. I have personally shown each one of them the other boxes that is at their disposal but for whatever reason they continue to ignore my accommodations.
And everyday they wait around on each other to do their thing.
And sometimes things get a little uncomfortable…
I was speaking to my chicken farmer brother-in-law about this strange predicament and he advised me to keep golf balls in the nest boxes. The hens think the golf balls are eggs thus encouraging them to lay in those boxes. I was about go buy some golf balls when I remembered the plastic eggs that came with my daughters play food. I explained the situation to her and she said I could use them.
My hens lay all their eggs in the far left nest box while the other two boxes on the right are always empty. So, I put the fake eggs in the two right nest boxes and sho nuff the very next day there were eggs in those boxes!
I will recommend that you keep golf balls (you could also use ceramic eggs, or heck, you could probably even use plastic Easter eggs) in every single one of your boxes because you can bet your butt they will lay in the boxes that have the decoys in them and leave the empty boxes…empty.
I was surprised at how easy and well this works. I wish all things in life were this simple to fix.
Update: The plastic fake eggs DO NOT work. They fooled the hens at first but they quickly figured me out. Someone mentioned the weight of the plastic eggs (or lack thereof) gives them away. My chickens are pushing them out of the nests! Golf balls as originally suggested, wooden eggs, glass eggs, door knobs, or ceramic eggs should all work.
Where to buy ceramic eggs: http://amzn.to/1mVQ3SX
What about you? Do your hens use all their nest boxes or do they have a favorite one? Share in the comments below and thanks for reading!
This article was originally published at Ready Nutrition™ on December 6th, 2014
My mother-in-law used hard-boiled eggs dyed a non-egg color (like purple) in each next box. Right shape, right weight and her chickens didn’t seem to care about the different color.
I was just thinking about mentioning using other eggs while reading this, i remember reading a piece about this somewhere like on a site that sells homesteading stuff, they had wooden eggs, were painted in different egg colors, were supposed to be for this purpose.
I have Dark Cornish, they are 5-6 weeks now or something like that, wanted a good solid mear bird that would brood well and be a pretty hearty forager, started off with 30 hens and 10 roosters, will start culling roosters around 10 weeks i think, going to shoot for 3 roosters and 20 hens, not 100% on that but was an idea anyway. Depending on how it all goes, i may split the flock to make it less competitive, the plan is to free range them in some big paddocs that adjoin the coop, depending on how it goes i may try to eventually increase the flocks, not big, but let them multiply and make more areas for them.
Some chickens lay blue eggs so I suppose purple is close enough to a chicken :p
Edit: or maybe blue-green eggs, I have trouble telling apart certain green shades from blue (sorry!).
When my new pulleys started laying, they were laying all over and not in the nesting boxes. I tried the golf balls and they were always kicking them out, I tried to run to the coop to put them in the boxes when I heard them starting to cackle. They were very stubborn and even flew ( which I then clipped their wings) on the enclosed 3 ft. Mash wire to lay their eggs. I was running out of options so I bought some brown ceramic eggs and put 2 in each box and I’ve never had to look for eggs again.
I have rubber eggs. Right size and weight, but you can easily tell them by touch. Also good for jokes with friends. Gather them and then throw 3 or 4 at once to a friend and watch the reaction, especially good for those who have fallen for it for the third or forth time
Yes I am a git 😉
I have ceramic eggs for my chickens – they move all of them to their one preferred nesting box! Same as you – far left and they leave the others bare. They are so silly – and determined!
I filled Easter eggs with dirt for some weight and glued them shut. They did the trick!