➡I accidentally bought Balut eggs: 2 live ducks! Now a Chat Thread!

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What is the chance of a newly laying pullet figuring out that she is to lay her egg in a nest box instead of plopping her egg out wherever she happens to be at the time? :barnie I found this egg in the yard the day before yesterday:
IMG_5547.JPG IMG_5548.JPG
And hubby found this one this morning in the pullets coop under one of the roost bars:
IMG_5549.JPG
The 2 eggs together:
IMG_5552.JPG
From the same chicken which I believe is my Lakeshore Egger Buttercup:
IMG_5531.JPG
She is was in and out of the nest box so much that I was sure she was going to lay. The problem is that she won't sit still long enough to do so. Instead, she waited until she couldn't any longer and plopped it out of the coop floor. Thankfully there were enough shavings in the bottom to cushion it from breaking. I have a chicken with ADHD y'all! :gig I hope she will figure it out on her own. Until then, I think I am going to try and figure out how to make the nest boxes inside their coop enticing enough to lay in if they should feel the urge to do so before they're let out in the morning and see if that helps. There are only 4 nest boxes in the bigs coop. For 14 girls. Is that enough? I should have thought about this a long time ago. :he
 
No matter how many nest boxes you have, they will use the same one. :lau

Yes, it takes a while for them to get with it. One year old hen laid an egg in the middle of the yard. Pretty as you please. Every once in a while, one will drop under the roost. Not often, but happens. One of the girls was having soft and no shell eggs for about 2 months this summer. I finally figured out who it was and she fixed the issue. Been laying well ever since.
 
CrazyCrttr75 said:
What is the chance of a newly laying pullet figuring out that she is to lay her egg in a nest box instead of plopping her egg out wherever she happens to be at the time? :barnie I found this egg in the yard the day before yesterday:
View attachment 1858186 View attachment 1858187
And hubby found this one this morning in the pullets coop under one of the roost bars:
View attachment 1858188
The 2 eggs together:
View attachment 1858191
From the same chicken which I believe is my Lakeshore Egger Buttercup:
View attachment 1858193
She is was in and out of the nest box so much that I was sure she was going to lay. The problem is that she won't sit still long enough to do so. Instead, she waited until she couldn't any longer and plopped it out of the coop floor. Thankfully there were enough shavings in the bottom to cushion it from breaking. I have a chicken with ADHD y'all! :gig I hope she will figure it out on her own. Until then, I think I am going to try and figure out how to make the nest boxes inside their coop enticing enough to lay in if they should feel the urge to do so before they're let out in the morning and see if that helps. There are only 4 nest boxes in the bigs coop. For 14 girls. Is that enough? I should have thought about this a long time ago. :he
Click to expand...
Do you have a fake egg in the nest box? My new girls this year weren't laying in the right spot, but once I added the fake egg they laid in the nest boxes nearly every time.
 
I put 3 golf balls in there. Spread them out. They would pile them all together.

12 hens, 2 nest boxes that are 4 feet long and 1 foot deep with lots of straw, grass, and hay. There should be room for everyone. Most of the girls are laying in the other box and I'm still pulling eggs out from underneath the broody hen.
 
Sara L said:
Do you have a fake egg in the nest box? My new girls this year weren't laying in the right spot, but once I added the fake egg they laid in the nest boxes nearly every time.
Click to expand...
I have them (chickens) in 2 coops. One I call the Big Coop. That is where the older girls and 2 boys sleep and where the 4 nest boxes are. Then the pullets coop. A huge prefab type coop that has 3 "nest box" sections. I have a couple fake eggs in the big coop but not in their individual coop. I could always pick up a couple more if need be. It's probably because she is a new layer. :fl
 
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I thought that I had bought some extra ceramic eggs at some point. They got put somewhere and then forgotten about. Don't you just hate when you do that? :barnie I went hunting again. Then it dawned on me. I looked. Yep! There they were. :ya We used them in the incubator that I bought when we were checking the temps against our other thermometers and what not and left them in there when we put it up. :smack So I just got back inside from cleaning and refreshing the shavings, if need be, in the coops. And in doing so, I took those extra eggs and put them in various nest boxes that were void of fake eggs. If they use the main boxes, great. If they use t one or more in their coop, great. If they don't, no big deal. I just don't want to have to go hunting for eggs is all. Now we wait..... :pop
 
Oh, something else that I've been meaning to bring up. A while back in the thread some of y'all were talking about that Duck Waterer.
71QH7DjJGAL._SX679_.jpg


Well, I've had my eye on it for a while. Ducks are messy. We know that. But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to strive to make their environment, and the clean up of it, function better. So I bought one. I figured, hey, I'll use it in their sleeping quarters instead of the one I'm currently using and maybe the area won't be as soaked like it normally is. I figured that they could drink but shouldn't be able to splash around in it like the other one. No way. I decided against it immediately. I filled it up and put it on the ground at first for them to check out instead of in their coop. First thing I noticed was how much they flicker the water out and over the cup and onto the ground. They won't be able to get IN it to splash around but the water they will spill out of it will be just as bad. So I decided against it. But it does give them another waterer for outside so it will still get used. I just thought I'd share my experience. I was able to come up with something different to help out my situation with their waterer that seems to be working quite well. I had one of those rubber bowls that you can get at Tractor Supply. It was big enough to hold their waterer so when they flicker water everywhere, it drips to the bottom of the bowl instead of on the shavings. It's working out GREAT!
IMG_5555.JPG
 
CrazyCrttr75 said:
Oh, something else that I've been meaning to bring up. A while back in the thread some of y'all were talking about that Duck Waterer.
View attachment 1858329

Well, I've had my eye on it for a while. Ducks are messy. We know that. But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to strive to make their environment, and the clean up of it, function better. So I bought one. I figured, hey, I'll use it in their sleeping quarters instead of the one I'm currently using and maybe the area won't be as soaked like it normally is. I figured that they could drink but shouldn't be able to splash around in it like the other one. No way. I decided against it immediately. I filled it up and put it on the ground at first for them to check out instead of in their coop. First thing I noticed was how much they flicker the water out and over the cup and onto the ground. They won't be able to get IN it to splash around but the water they will spill out of it will be just as bad. So I decided against it. But it does give them another waterer for outside so it will still get used. I just thought I'd share my experience. I was able to come up with something different to help out my situation with their waterer that seems to be working quite well. I had one of those rubber bowls that you can get at Tractor Supply. It was big enough to hold their waterer so when they flicker water everywhere, it drips to the bottom of the bowl instead of on the shavings. It's working out GREAT!
View attachment 1858331
Click to expand...

That’s awesome!! Glad it’s working out!!

Something like this might help as well. See the second to last paragraph.

https://www.metzerfarms.com/RearingInstructions.cfm?affiliate=undef&CustID=24306172
 
Actually, I’ll just quote it here and make it easier for everyone haha but it came from Metzer’s website. You already seem to have come up with a great solution but this still might help or maybe for the future.

“Waterfowl can also be very messy with their water. For them it is best to make a wire platform on which the waterer sits. For babies it can be 1/2" hardware cloth and for adults it can be 1" welded wire nailed on to wood cross pieces. This can be placed over a pan for the babies or over a pit in the ground for the adults. The platform should be large enough to extend at least 6" out from the edge of the waterer for the babies and 30" for the adults. With this platform, any spilled water goes through the wire and out of reach. They cannot track it back to the bedding or make a mud puddle with it. Their drinking water stays cleaner, too. All of our birds (from babies to adults) have some sort of wire or plastic platform under their waters to keep their pen or pasture drier.”​
 

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