The golf ball trick

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Mikee1948

Mikee1948

Songster
8 Years
May 19, 2011
158
0
112
doesn't work for me. I have a hen laying anywhere she feels like (at least it's in the coop).
 
Yeah I had the same problem, except mine was laying between to rusted out cars that are in the yard. There's some old car parts and stuff between the cars and she'd found a little hard to see nook in that stuff to make a nest. I've currently turned the two eggs I found in the little nest she made into dummy eggs for where I want her to lay. I hard boiled them, and marked them with little "D"s so that I could tell them from new eggs she lays. I'm hoping she'll lay where I want her to now, and the others will follow her example when they start laying.

I put golf balls not only in good nest spots in the pen, but in a few areas in the yard where they free range as well. She couldn't pick even one of those places. Well she and the others are getting delayed in getting let out of the pen until she learns where to lay.
 
The golf ball trick worked way too well for me. The girls used to fight over the same nesting box, even though they have 3. Now they use all 3 of them. BUT, the babies go in there and bury the eggs in the hay, so it involves a certain amount of digging
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What is the golf ball trick? I'm new to chicken foibles, and would like a bit more info. also, does it help hens who are hesitant about laying?
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Quote:
Basicaly it's this: most hens like to lay where someone else has layed an egg already, because that looks like a safe place. And to most hens, golf balls look enough like eggs for them to except them as eggs. So if you want your hens to lay in a particular place, and can't find any else as a fake egg, golf balls should work.
 
No, it just shows them where to lay. You can't trick a chicken into laying an egg, or hasten the event. The "trick" is that chickens think a golf ball in the nest is an egg, so they want that to be where they lay, too. It works very well for me. So much, in fact that they follow the golf ball. If I move it to the next nest, the girls move over to lay, too.
Nicki82, I agree with you
 
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I've got fake eggs. I've tried moving the eggs, but all four of my chickens want to lay in the same box no matter what. Sigh. Oh well.
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Mine play golf with the golf ball and then lay all in the same box. Then I get broodies all wanting in the same box, sometimes three of them piled on top of each other.
 
Well this morning, my girl that's laying kicked the golf ball, and the hard boiled dummy eggs out of the nest box I want her to lay in... Then layed in it. But only after I put some of the ground cover she's used to laying in, into the box. She was so stressed out and frantic to get back over to her usual spot. I hoped that having some of the ground cover from that area would make the box more accepable. I'm glad it did. A few more days of keeping them penned until she lays and she'll get over it, right?
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Thanks for the info guys....now what do you with hens that just plain don't want to lay, and aren't more than 2 yrs old? We have about thirty hens, and only get about a dozen eggs each day.
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very frustrating!
 

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