Questions for new chickens

I figure it will take a few days for my chickens to get used to their surroundings, this is day 2. Today I saw one of them sitting on the perch. 3 eggs have been laid so far, however; they are laying them in the straw on the floor. Why are they not going in the nesting boxes yet or is it just something new they haven't quite yet tried? The nesting boxes are 2-3 feet off the floor. The perch is 1 foot off the floor on the opposite wall. Same question for when they will go outside? I opened the trap door today but they didn't go out?

New chickens often aren't sure what to think of the great outdoors or new nest boxes. Give them time on the outdoors thing. If you remove them and set them outside, they may not know how to get back in.
For the eggs, make sure they can easily see into the nest boxes and put some nice, fake eggs in with some awesome looking nest liner so that the chickens can't help but consider it for a laying site.

Best of luck with your new birds!

Thank you. I will open the door everyday and wait for them to get comfortable with going outside. The fake eggs are a great idea. Like the plastic ones they sell at the dollare store? I'll pick some up, thanks.

I found 2 soft shell broken eggs this morning, with another good egg. Why the broken and soft shell?

As chickens are new to laying they can lay all sorts of odd eggs, soft shell, no shell, tiny eggs no eggs for a couple days, etc. They will get the full groove going eventually most likely. I feed washed/dried/crushed egg shells back to my hens for calcium. Most people use oyster shells but mine prefer the shells by far. Golf balls, plastic easter eggs, most anything works for the decoy eggs.

Wonderful, thankyou! So glad to get advice and suggestions from other chicken farmers! Thank you!

You are doing great! If your hens are all the same age then it is time for you to switch from grower feed to layer feed by the way.

Here's the thing about chickens and new surroundings. They are cautious and they don't rush things while getting settled in. They need to know they're safe, so they're slow to venture outside until they know it's safe to do so. Usually one bold chicken in the group will take the lead and the others will follow. But if there isn't a bold leader, then it may take forever for them to venture outside.

Give them a few more days, and entice them outside by putting treats in the doorway leading outside, like in Hansel and Gretel, the fairy tale where the which entices the children to her lair with bread crumbs. It will also work on chickens.

To show the hens that the nest boxes are a good place to lay eggs, place fake eggs in one of them. Later, move the fake eggs to another nest box. I've watched my hens choosing a nest to lay in. They always look into all of the possible laying places before deciding where to lay. One of the favorite spots is in a corner on the floor under a nest box. If there's already an egg there, that's where they will decide to lay their egg.

When you find broken eggs, a lot of the time it's because the egg has a thin shell and gets broken as another egg is laid on top of it. You need to keep the eggs gathered up so there's less chance of this occurring. Make sure you have oyster shell available in a separate container all the time so they can satisfy their calcium needs. You can continue to feed the chick starter until it's all gone, then get layer feed, but layer feed isn't absolutely necessary if you make sure they have the oyster shell. You can choose to feed them a higher protein flock grower instead if you wish.

Thank you for all the information. I will try the plastic egg when I get them. I have a beige rock same shape and size of egg I will try in the meantime. I do have one that seems bossy. She will probably lead the others. I will also pick up some oyster shells for calcium, I've been told before about these and I think they will be needed. Thanks again!

Mamachic1967 said:

I figure it will take a few days for my chickens to get used to their surroundings, this is day 2. Today I saw one of them sitting on the perch. 3 eggs have been laid so far, however; they are laying them in the straw on the floor. Why are they not going in the nesting boxes yet or is it just something new they haven't quite yet tried? The nesting boxes are 2-3 feet off the floor. The perch is 1 foot off the floor on the opposite wall. Same question for when they will go outside? I opened the trap door today but they didn't go out?

Click to expand...

By 'perch' do you mean roost...where they sleep at night?

They'll want to roost(sleep) as high as possible, so you want your roost to be higher than your nests by about a foot or they may sleep in the nests making a poopy mess.

Both nests and roosts should be easy to get up to and down from, using either ramps or having plenty of room to fly down without hitting a wall or something else.

The nests should have a perch about 8" in front for them to land on and take a look at the nests before they choose the one they find most suitable.

Yes, a roost, sorry some call it a perch. This was very helpful! Thank you! I will make some adjustments. Thanks!