All My Hens Are Using the Same Nesting Box!

[Atrayu]

great idea about the community nesting boxes.
I will have to try that if the dummy eggs don't work.
thanks for the suggestion!

 

[chefchick]

Quote:
I'll do you one better... My husband found my purple with yellow spots cermaic egg in a nest box and thought for a minute that my EE's started early!... I know ... we all got a laugh at his expense, and then he felt REALLY stupid

 

[featherz]

 

[bikerchic]

Love the last pic! My turn, NO its my turn!

 

[Atrayu]

Love the last pic with all the hens cramped in the one box.
Those girls are crazy! LOL!

 

[ChickenGirl165]

Hello, i have experienced this too. 4 of my hens, out of six lay in the same nesting box. I only have 2 nesting boxes but i will get more quickly. One lays inthe box on the right and and 4 lay on the left. When the box on the right is empty, they still want to lay in the left bx. There is a gap in between the boxes and once i saw one of my hens trying to create a nest of her own in the gap by taking the straw. Although it will take her hours t make a nest by getting one straw at a time. Luckily i have never found a broken egg in the boxes, although i have found one broken by what i think was a bird as it was rollen and had a hole in it. I dont really have much to say which can help you, sorry

 

[actressbarbie]

We have the same issue. Lots of chickens, may find 4 or 5 eggs in the same box. A friend of ours has noticed the same thing. He has dozens and they will lay on top of each other in the same box to lay eggs. It's a funny sight! Must be a chicken thing!

 

[ECBW]

That is what chickens do. The conventional wisdom is 4 birds per nest, even that may be increased.

My setup allows me to adjust the size of the nests. After trials, I found the birds prefer snug nests.

 

[CoupeDeVille]

I've got eight hens and three nestboxes, and it seems like whoever lays first in the morning the others follow the lead..All the days eggs are always in the same one box;very rarely one off in the next box..Love to catch them sharing a box too, so funny to see two hens squeezed in there !
When hurricane Irene came thru Connecticut, I didn't check on the hens that one day..When I collected the eggs the day following, they had 13 eggs stacked in a pyramid in one box !! Dunno how they did it, but I wish I took a picture...

 

[goldtopper]

I thought why fight it?
They only use the one, so with one of the others, I bought a 4" pvc pipe, cut the end at an angle, propped it up and made the box the auto feeder location. It feeds into a pie plate and it's great!