Wooden eggs

[EggsnQuackers]

I'm going to try using wooden eggs in my nesting areas this year. Does anyone treat their wooden eggs with anything? I worry about them getting dirty. Is it worth it to spray them with a clear polyurethane or use a food grade mineral oil (like I use on my wooden cutting boards). Or should I just leave them as is?

 

[foreverlearning]

Just leave them as is. Once they start getting used to laying in the nest box you won't need them in there anymore. All it takes is one girl thinking the nest is a good spot to lay and the others will follow her lead. They don't usually poop in a nest box if they are laying. They only do it if they are sleeping in it.

 

[sunflour]

Just leave them as is. Once they start getting used to laying in the nest box you won't need them in there anymore. All it takes is one girl thinking the nest is a good spot to lay and the others will follow her lead. T

I totally agree. I used ceramic eggs in the nests and 5/6 laid in the nest boxes. Daily I removed real eggs, but left the fakes - which truly looked so much like theirs I often picked up the wrong one. Should have taken the fake eggs out after the nests were being used, but let the fake eggs in for over a month. One of my newly laying BO went broody….on the ceramic egg. She got over it only after I removed the fake eggs!!!!

I posted my brag elsewhere, but the one floor layer showed no interest in fake eggs, or even her own when I moved it to a nest. after 8 months of floor laying, she just started laying in the nest box.

 

[aart]

I just leave a couple golf balls in each of the nests all the time.

Don't let them roost/sleep in the nests and they probably won't get dirty.

 

[Happy Chooks]

My wooden eggs and golf balls stay in the nest all the time. No need to treat them. They look enough like real eggs that my MIL will collect them when we are gone and ask her to look in on the birds.

I have a couple of nests without anything in them for those that prefer an empty nest to lay in. That way if a new pullet gets curious about an egg and pecks at it, it's not a real egg.