chickens moving golf ball to floor and laying an egg next to it.

[nuchickontheblock]

We have a couple of pullets who just started laying this week. I have been placing a golf ball and ping pong balls(just one or two in each) of the nest boxes to give them the idea of where to lay. So the girls have been going in and out of the boxes and kicking the balls out onto the floor every day and playing with the balls. This evening when I went into the coop, there were two "nests" the girls had built in the corners of the coop on the floor. Each one had an egg. One also had a golf ball and ping pong ball nestled beside the egg, and the other had just a ping pong ball next to the egg.

I placed the eggs and balls back into the nest boxes at least until my granddaughters find them in the morning. That is always big excitement when they are visiting. We'll see what happens. . . I hope they don't kick the eggs out of the nest boxes and break them.

 

[Ashbow]

You can try ceramic eggs instead of ping pong balls. They are heavier to move around.

 

[pdirt]

New layers often have some quirks to work out while they're learning what they're doing. If you can, when you see them setting on the floor where they have been laying, just pick them up and put them in the nest box. If they hop out, just keep putting back in, until they stay there.

Posting a couple photos of your nest boxes might help, perhaps there is a design issue, but most likely it's just them working out the kinks.