Fake eggs for laying encouragement

[The Golden Egg5]

Yes all the colors work. I purposely bought white ceramic eggs for all brown/ blue layers so I could tell them apart from the real eggs. They lay in the nesting boxes every day.

 

[Brawley Leigh]

Yes all the colors work. I purposely bought white ceramic eggs for all brown/ blue layers so I could tell them apart from the real eggs. They lay in the nesting boxes every day.

Thx so much for your reply. My girls are only 14.5 weeks but finally this week have started walking the ramp to the nest box area so they are checking things out YAY

 

[The Golden Egg5]

Thx so much for your reply. My girls are only 14.5 weeks but finally this week have started walking the ramp to the nest box area so they are checking things out YAY

Your welcome! So exciting! You should have some eggs in the next few weeks!

 

[OCeggs23]

We used neon yellow Spongebob golf balls! (Hey, it was all we had available.)
Worked like a charm!

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

I made a roll out next box, my girls are 16 weeks old now, my boxes have a dense carpet (think commercial carpet squares) and I do not want to put any nesting materials in there at all. I just ordered a couple ceramic eggs, I am going to hot glue them in place so the do not roll out and just pull them out once they are in the habit of laying in the box, as soon as they start laying of course......

Gary

 

[GC-Raptor]

Does the color of the ceramic egg matter...dumb question I'm sure but I'm a beginner. I have the brown ceramic and ended up with Leghorns that lay white eggs....will any ole egg or golf ball work?

I have brown layers, and bought white ceramic eggs, so I could tell the difference.
It's been working for a year, and I haven't made a mistake. , and my hens don't seem to mind.. GC

 

[Sandibeach]

When do you remove the faux eggs? Or do you just leave them? I think I have a broody hen.

 

[lazy gardener]

Fake eggs can stay in the nest year round. I bought a few ceramic eggs. They look and feel so real, I had to mark them with a sharpie! I've also used golf balls, and weighted plastic Easter eggs of all sorts of colors. The girls really don't seem to care. I often move the fakes from one nest to an other, and the girls "follow" the fake eggs. This ensures that they don't get "spoiled" and all insist on using a single favorite nest while the rest of the boxes remain empty.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you set eggs under the broody, leave the fake eggs until you set the real eggs, then remove the fakes. Gather all the eggs you want her to hatch and start them at the same time so they will hatch together.

I use golf balls and leave one golf ball in each nest all the time. As LG said it does show them where to lay. It's not perfect but it really helps. While mine tend to lay a lot more eggs in one nests than others I generally get eggs out of every nest. Which nest is popular changes occasionally too.

A couple of times I've had snakes eat the golf balls overnight. I know because the snakes could not get back out of the hole they used to come in with those golf balls swelling them up. Most of the time the snakes totally ignore the golf balls but the golf balls did help me stop two snakes that were eating the eggs.

I just don't know of any bad thing that can be caused by leaving fake eggs in the nest all the time and occasionally they can help.

 

[aart]

Ditto LG and RR in 2 posts above.
I also mark the fake ceramic, with pencil that rubs off over time.
I have put them in the basket, but never sold one yet...haha!
It was fun to move them around to see how the birds react,
but mostly just leave one in each nest to 'spread the love'.