Curtains?

[barred2rock]

Due to a possible egg eater, I put up curtains (black cut up t-shirt) on the nest boxes. As soon as I did the girls would look at the nest then back at me, as if to say what the heck is this. They seem confused and now I'm worried they may not use the boxes. Those of you that have curtains over your nest boxes, how did you get the girls to use the boxes with curtains? Or did they just figure it out on their own?

 

[bekachickenborn]

Due to a possible egg eater, I put up curtains (black cut up t-shirt) on the nest boxes. As soon as I did the girls would look at the nest then back at me, as if to say what the heck is this. They seem confused and now I'm worried they may not use the boxes. Those of you that have curtains over your nest boxes, how did you get the girls to use the boxes with curtains? Or did they just figure it out on their own?

Mine just figured it out. No training needed. And the combo of curtains/ceramic eggs/more frequent collection broke my egg eating problem. Good luck!

 

[barred2rock]

Mine just figured it out. No training needed. And the combo of curtains/ceramic eggs/more frequent collection broke my egg eating problem. Good luck!

Thank you! I do have ceramic eggs and usually collect within minutes after lay. But the past three days there have been no eggs to collect (only two are laying that I know of).

This morning I noticed my least mature girl (no large comb or wattles, not laying) had a very small amount of what appeared to be egg yolk on her face. I didn't think much of it, until a few hours later I found a mostly eaten egg shell.

The ceramic eggs remain in the nests, so I don't know if they're being layed outside of the nests. Or they've figured out how to differentiate real from fake and are kickng out the real to eat. No mess in the nests.

 

[barred2rock]

Well, I let them out a bit earlier this morning to see if I could catch what was going on. Found two rubber eggs under their perch, one broken and being eaten by my least mature. I went ahead and let them eat the rubber eggs; is that okay?

 

[barred2rock]

Oh btw, they're going in and out of the curtained nest boxes without issue this morning. Unfortunately they haven't been laying in them the past four days (unless they're being kicked out of the nests, but don't think so now).

ETA: Apparently at least three are now laying. Just found a good egg in one of the nest boxes.