A ghost chicken is moving my "decoy" eggs

[ninjadryden]

My hens are about to laying for the first time. In prep for this I place a regular store bough egg in their nesting boxes. I was told this will let them know where to lay egg instead of randomly in the yard. 3 times today I went out to the coop and found the lower nesting box decoy egg moved somewhere else in the coop. \

Why are they moving the decoy eggs?

 

[chooks4life]

Impossible to say without you having seen the behavior... It's also not too likely all your hens have the same opinion on the egg... One may have enough instinct to detect that the egg is unhealthy, so she's removing it from the nest, but given that none of yours are laying yet that's very unlikely.

They may be rolling it around trying to find out how to get into it, that's a common behavior preceding egg-eating. They can and do learn that from watching others but they'll just roll it around in the first case, most times, before they get the angle right and break into it. Some don't like using that much force, perhaps hurts their beaks somewhat.

They may be showing some natural instinct to roll the egg under them in order to keep the clutch together, but if they all go in there together they may be playing 'pass the parcel', i.e. some hens will stick their heads under other hens to retrieve eggs they think they own, but again because they're not brooding nor even laying yet that's very unlikely.

Another possibility is that you have a juvenile rat or some predator that's not experienced with eggs yet trying to get into it; it can smell the yolk inside but perhaps hasn't got the idea of how to get it. Some rats and mice can be quite silly with eggs like that, leaving chisel marks around the outside then stopping before they actually break into it, having given up prematurely.

If there are raised edges more than two inches high on the nesting boxes it's also unlikely that it's the chooks doing it. Some hens hold their clutches so tightly with their wings that they can lift the whole nest, clutch and all, if you place a hand under their breasts and lift them; others hold their wings so tight that they will walk off the nest then release the egg some meters from it. Both are behaviors much more common to adult hens with maternal instincts and experience, not inexperienced juveniles who have not even hit P.O.L.

It's probably likelier that it's either not the chooks doing it, or it's them accidentally doing it by digging in the nest straw and kicking it flying. A healthy egg can be thrown many meters, bounce off trees, rocks, etc, without breaking, they are amazingly strong and resilient. Some eggs have taken me multiple throws to break, even when throwing straight at the ground, if it's not concrete. I wasn't throwing gently, but not very hard either (at least, not to begin with) because who expects to have to use any amount of significant force to break an egg?

Another possibility is that they want the egg in a different nest but it's also unlikely as they're not laying yet. At this point, depending on their instinct levels and whether they've ever helped themselves to some raw eggs for a meal before or seen it done, it's a better bet that they're just curious or investigating it as a potential food item. If the shell is white they may be pecking it around trying to get calcium, most hens want more calcium than layer diets give them, even before they start laying, and most animals identify white things as a calcium source.

In any case I wouldn't use a real egg for a nest egg. I use plaster of paris coated in arcrylic as it conducts heat like a healthy egg so instinct-strong hens won't kick it out for not metabolizing in response to their body heat like a fertile, live egg does, as that's how they tell which eggs are viable and which liable to explode. Fake nest eggs also help retrain egg eaters and deter predators. One particularly silly rat dug almost an inch deep into one fake egg before realizing there was no yolk, lol!

Best wishes.

 

[ninjadryden]

Last night i added golf balls to the nesting box and this morning the eggs were on the coop floor. No teeth marks. they were not no broken either.

 

[chooks4life]

Sounds like possibly the hens are kicking them out of the nest, you didn't mention if there are any raised 'lips' on the boxes sufficiently high enough to stop that happening.

 

[tantricdragon13]

I've also had this happen. This morning I went out and one of the decoy eggs (plastic from Hobby Lobby) had been kicked out of the nest. Later I went back out and the other egg had been knocked out, but this time it looks like one of the pullets had made a nest in the box.

They are 21 weeks and have exhibited all the signs of maturity, such as squatting, red combs, singing the egg song....so I'm wondering if this new interest in the boxes might be preceding the first egg. Or at least I sure hope so!

You can see the fake egg lying on the floor with the new nest depression in the bedding. Unfortunately, when building the boxes, we didn't allow for a very big lip (oops!), so hopefully they don't do this with the real eggs! Though if so, I guess an additional height to the lip won't be a difficult add-on.

 

[ninjadryden]

Yes there is a 1.5 - 2 inch lip on my milk crates.

What is the EGG SONG?

My hens are 21 weeks old... I had found 5 egg in 4 day two week ago but they stopped ... i dont know why. their combs are red... and their hips are getting wide... their vents look NOT DRY but i would not say wet. ... ... some of them squat and is very calm... but no eggs.

SO SAD!

 

[tantricdragon13]

What is the EGG SONG?

My girls singing.

 

[chooks4life]

Yes there is a 1.5 - 2 inch lip on my milk crates.

What is the EGG SONG?

My hens are 21 weeks old... I had found 5 egg in 4 day two week ago but they stopped ... i dont know why. their combs are red... and their hips are getting wide... their vents look NOT DRY but i would not say wet. ... ... some of them squat and is very calm... but no eggs.

SO SAD!

If they free range I would suspect they're laying elsewhere. The lip on those boxes is too low as well. If they are --- or even just one of them is --- in the habit of digging in the nest, they could be breaking eggs and eating them, shells and all, before you notice they've laid.

None of my hens regularly sing the 'egg song', it's very rare to hear it and generally means a snake or something is in the coop --- I believe making that ruckus after laying is probably something we bred into them via thousands of years of egg/nest raiding since it's identical to the alarm call and obviously a hen who stood in or near her nest making that noise would not pass on her genes in the wild since it would bring predators. Still, it's common enough among most domestic hens.

Best wishes.