An interesting observation

[Ole rooster]

I've been having a real problem getting my hens to lay in the coop ever since one of my hen hatched chicks in there. I built a new nest box of 3 nest mounted on the outside of the shed. I put a golf ball in two nest and a fake egg in the the other. 4 of the hens have found the nest and are laying in one nest. Yep, the one with the fake egg. Now I'm going to put a fake egg in the other two and see if they change nest or if it matters at all. I thought this might be interesting for folks wondering which to use.

 

[Den in Penn]

Did that when the current flock was at point of lay only I used real eggs. I have ten nest boxes in two tiers of five. Used six eggs and moved them around daily, The golf ball moved between two boxes on the upper tier. When you post your results I'll relate mine.

 

[Ole rooster]

Today I swapped the egg with a golf ball in another nest. Three went to the egg nest and the forth hasn't layed yet. Here anyway the egg is favored. I will see a hen go in one nest but will move to another one to lay.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've sort of noticed that. I keep golf balls in all my nests. Some hens prefer the same nest every day, but some seem to lay where another egg was already laid.

Some days the left one has more eggs, some days the right one has more eggs. I think that depends on which nest had an early egg in it, along with the golf ball. And practically every day, the higher nest has one and only one little pullet egg.

 

[DDNONIN2016]

I have 2 nest boxes....one has a golf ball the other has plastic egg. All eight of my hens lay in the box with the plastic egg.

 

[Ole rooster]

I find that very interesting. I watched one chicken move twice till she ended up in the nest with the fake egg. How bout that.

 

[Den in Penn]

As the common wisdom has it they did tend to lay in the nests with an egg. They laid more in the nest with two eggs already there in the morning. Funny thing about the golf ball. The EEs laid there. I used brown eggs as the decoys, the golf ball was white. Don't know why the EEs preferred that golf ball. There was only the occasional brown egg with the golf ball.

 

[ChicKat]

It really is interesting.