Search results for query: *

Another update: when a lot of my older layers started laying in the spring they all started laying in various places under or around the nest boxes. No even the younger layers lay under the box. Oh well, at least it’s in the coop.

Update: patience and persistence is indeed key. All chickens are now laying in the nest boxes, including a total of three new layers (one of them restarted after winter molt). While I’d been letting them out in the afternoons, the weather has been so bad that nearly all of the flock spends the...

Time to celebrate! This was the hen laying in the coffee grounds and then on the Lowe’s bag!!!! I am anxious to see if I find an egg in a little bit.

That is a super interesting idea, especially since the other boxes have natural wood behind them and are darker. Also I found an egg hiding under a roost so oops. Not everyone is corrected apparently.

Too bad telling yourself to calm down doesn’t work!

Little update: my errant coffee-ground layer found her box missing and laid on a Lowe’s bag today, BUT I found a brand spanking new egg in the correct nest boxes and an olive egg! The new egg was tiny and a very interesting shade of very light slate-blue. I don’t know how else to describe it...

Thank you :) We've put a lot of love into it only to have our girls give us a big thumbs down! Lol

No timer, but I get home about 20-30 minutes before dark and turn it off. This only extends their light time to about 11 hours though, so I don't have high hopes of this doing me much good. If I had a timer I'd use it. I'm not normally an advocate for forcing them to lay early, but they have had...

That is a good idea! I've done this once with a plastic bag of soil when I ran out of pots, but the plastic isn't very breathable. I have bought and used breathable sacks. The type of feedbags I use would be very comparable! The only difference is, I couldn't repot with the sacks, but with feed...

So one bag only covered two boxes and I had enough mental energy to cover only those two but they won’t be moving that cat litter box. They hate the new boxes so much that one of my newest layers and my smallest bird apparently flew over the coop wall, laid in this deep box of coffee grounds...

Is it weird that I feel bad for doing that? Like they take up so much space and *seem* like they could have more uses. I usually toss them every few months. I haven't made it home yet to cover the nest boxes with bags. Slow, slow, slow day at work. Been sulking around BYC all day.

Yes most of mine are a type of woven plastic, but I could use them for trash. Trash bags are just more convenient lol. Right now one bag is the holder of all of the other bags.

Thanks aart! I knew I was saving those old feed sacks for something lol

I'll do that! Thank you for that easy idea.

They were indeed on the floor like the ones in the brooder coop. I closed off the nest boxes yesterday morning by shoving feedbags in them. One of those little stinkers pulled out the bags and laid in there anyways lol. So I sat cat litter boxes directly in front of them this time. I have too...

Poor baby. I had a pullet with some broken bones on her right side. I believe it was both her wing and ribs that were broke. She healed quite lopsided and can’t flap very well. It took her quite a few months to adjust to her new normal, but she understands her limitations.

I figured since they laid on the AstroTurf pads in the brooder coop (the three nest boxes) they wouldn’t have issues with it, but honestly at this rate I should just try adding pine shavings and hope it works.

I thought about adding pine shavings, but since they laid on the AstroTurf in the other boxes, I figured that wasn’t their issue. I have also had pullets in earlier times drop eggs on the ground and learn to lay in the box, but these girls were already laying in nesting boxes and quickly ID-ed...

Thank you. I am probably worrying too early. I wouldn’t worry at all if they hadn’t started laying in the “wrong” boxes lol. It makes me worry they simply don’t like the new boxes! Their old coop had nesting boxes on the ground. Perhaps they don’t like the change?

I feel like I already know the answers here, but still I thought someone could offer up some of their experience. I moved my girls to a new coop and they refuse to lay in the nest boxes. Initially I had some real and fake eggs, 1-2 eggs in three out of eight available nest boxes, and they just...