L7 Farm
Chirping
My best egg layer (most frequent, biggest eggs, great shells, etc.) (Hortence) also takes a loooooong time to lay, like hours each morning, sometimes *all* morning. We have only six hens (limited by local ordinance) and have two nesting boxes in the coop, and when their cycles get in synch, as they are now, we start to have traffic jams. One of the hens just decides to make a nest in the coop proper, right next to the nesting boxes, but the others kind of mill around not sure how to get into a free nesting box or coming up and being clucked away by Hortence, who seems to not like company anywhere near when she's laying.
On the one hand, things always work out eventually -- we've only had two eggs layed in the chicken yard with this set of hens (which started laying early this fall), everything gets layed someplace in the coop. So presumably the other hens can "hold it in" and Hortence just likes to take her time.
But I'm curious about two things:
(1) Is there an issue with Hortence the Nest Hog? She is the hen who went broody on us a while back, so I have snuck out to make sure she hasn't already layed and has just decided to sit on it for a while, to make sure she's not going broody again, but nope, she just is slow laying. There are NO signs of her being sick or otherwise eggbound -- the only oddity from her we've had in almost six months of laying is one rubber egg. That's it.
So is it normal just to have the odd hen who likes to take her time?
My spouse, who grew up on a small farm and is my resident chicken expert, is no help here -- she grew up with so many chickens she says they never took notice of any one in particular and if one got sick they'd just cull it, it one got broody they'd ignore it.
(2) Is there such a thing as too many nest boxes? I was thinking of rigging up one or two spare ones to alleviate the traffic jams, particularly for our omega hen who seems most intimidated and flustered by not being able to get in to a nesting box when Hortence is hogging them, although she always lays eventually.
My instinct at this point is to just wait and see if any actual problems develop but since I'm a new chicken keeper and the seemingly deep knowledge base of my spouse has these gaps with respect to such a small flock, I worry a little anyway.
Thoughts?
On the one hand, things always work out eventually -- we've only had two eggs layed in the chicken yard with this set of hens (which started laying early this fall), everything gets layed someplace in the coop. So presumably the other hens can "hold it in" and Hortence just likes to take her time.
But I'm curious about two things:
(1) Is there an issue with Hortence the Nest Hog? She is the hen who went broody on us a while back, so I have snuck out to make sure she hasn't already layed and has just decided to sit on it for a while, to make sure she's not going broody again, but nope, she just is slow laying. There are NO signs of her being sick or otherwise eggbound -- the only oddity from her we've had in almost six months of laying is one rubber egg. That's it.
So is it normal just to have the odd hen who likes to take her time?
My spouse, who grew up on a small farm and is my resident chicken expert, is no help here -- she grew up with so many chickens she says they never took notice of any one in particular and if one got sick they'd just cull it, it one got broody they'd ignore it.
(2) Is there such a thing as too many nest boxes? I was thinking of rigging up one or two spare ones to alleviate the traffic jams, particularly for our omega hen who seems most intimidated and flustered by not being able to get in to a nesting box when Hortence is hogging them, although she always lays eventually.
My instinct at this point is to just wait and see if any actual problems develop but since I'm a new chicken keeper and the seemingly deep knowledge base of my spouse has these gaps with respect to such a small flock, I worry a little anyway.
Thoughts?
