Egg hiding..... darn chickens!

[ChaoticCritters]

I thought the heat was why I went from 6-7 eggs a day to 1-3 until I realized that a certain lil lady who is known for egg-hiding didn't show up for treats mid-morning. Went poking around and found her fuzzy butt buried in my haystack sitting on 9 eggs! 5 of which floated, so I dumped.

My Cuckoo Maran disappeared the second the coop was opened this morning, so I called the kids and we went hunting. Her fuzzy but was found tunneled into the straw pile sitting on 11 eggs!!!

They have 5 perfectly good nesting boxes filled with comfy shavings in the coop. Now there are two giant windows in front of the boxes so I hung curtains on the boxes, obviously not helping. They have a stand-alone nesting box in their run (I don't lock them in the run unless visitors come with dogs) and it's not being used. All the boxes have golf balls in them and they happily used them all Winter!

So now what? I don't have the time/energy to go on an Easter Egg hunt every day, plus they are now wiggling into crevices I just plain can't get into!

 

[devora]

Time to do some schoolin', I suppose.

Lock them in until they lay where you want. It usually takes only a few days.

After they've learned, let them free range after they lay, i.e. don't let them out until afternoon.

And after that you won't have to go on an egg hunt ever, ever again. {Cue evil laugh}

 

[ChaoticCritters]

My chickens aren't right in the head..... they lay all day long, I've had a darn chicken lay an egg at 10pm at night while I was outside checking on everyone as we had just spotted Coyotes in the yard. I hate to lock them up all day, I can close their run gate but half of them just fly over the fence, so that's pointless. The run is more to keep dogs/coyotes from getting anywhere near the coop at night.

 

[devora]

Are they new to laying? It can take them some time to settle in. Years.

You don't need to keep them in permanently. Lock them in for two days, no free range.

Then begin letting them out at, say, 3p, then 2p until you hit around noon.

My chickens are not right in the head either. Yet, they have me running around waiting on them hand and foot so they clearly are on the ball in some areas.