- Aug 29, 2014
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My ladies have decided that they want to lay near the door to their coop (the opening in the floor is for the ladder into the run):
You can see where one girl had just scratched around in the corner; the egg was there. I haven't interfered so far because I actually don't mind them laying here. The eggs are easy to collect and I keep the coop extremely clean and dry (there are only two hens). But there's one problem: because they're not laying in a box that would contain the bedding and prevent it from all being scratched away, one of my girls in particular sometimes cracks (in a very minor way) the pointy end of her egg, presumably because it lands on the wooden floor. (Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know which end of the egg comes out first.
)
The coop came with movable nest boxes, and one of them would fit into the space where they are currently laying:
(That is a fake egg in the box.) I am wondering if I should move the box to this spot, or if this will throw them off and cause them to do something else silly and less desirable than what they are currently doing. I had started out with straw in the box (and pine shavings in the coop), but because they seemed to prefer the pine shavings I added those to the box as well; should the box be all pine shavings? And should I try moving it into this space? If so, better to do it in the evening once they are done laying for the day, so that they encounter it the next time they go up to lay the following day? Or should I time it some other way? They usually take turns using that spot each day, one soon after the other. Or -- are the small cracks in the end of the egg the result of something else?
This is what they sometimes look like:
Maybe they would be a little cracked this way even if laid in a nesting box? I don't know. Oddly, this generally seems to happen with only one hen.
Any thoughts appreciated.
You can see where one girl had just scratched around in the corner; the egg was there. I haven't interfered so far because I actually don't mind them laying here. The eggs are easy to collect and I keep the coop extremely clean and dry (there are only two hens). But there's one problem: because they're not laying in a box that would contain the bedding and prevent it from all being scratched away, one of my girls in particular sometimes cracks (in a very minor way) the pointy end of her egg, presumably because it lands on the wooden floor. (Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know which end of the egg comes out first.
The coop came with movable nest boxes, and one of them would fit into the space where they are currently laying:
(That is a fake egg in the box.) I am wondering if I should move the box to this spot, or if this will throw them off and cause them to do something else silly and less desirable than what they are currently doing. I had started out with straw in the box (and pine shavings in the coop), but because they seemed to prefer the pine shavings I added those to the box as well; should the box be all pine shavings? And should I try moving it into this space? If so, better to do it in the evening once they are done laying for the day, so that they encounter it the next time they go up to lay the following day? Or should I time it some other way? They usually take turns using that spot each day, one soon after the other. Or -- are the small cracks in the end of the egg the result of something else?
This is what they sometimes look like:
Maybe they would be a little cracked this way even if laid in a nesting box? I don't know. Oddly, this generally seems to happen with only one hen.
Any thoughts appreciated.
