I’m not going to get too involved in a debate about what chickens do or don’t know.
A couple of points though:
I was responding to the question posed by Taylettice “has anyone else had this happen”
My reply at its most basic is yes, often, you are entitled to disagree with my opinion as to why it happens.
It would seem from Taylettice’s later post the her very stupid chicken can tell the difference between a fake and real egg; maybe the idea that this very stupid chicken can tell her own eggs from others isn’t so far fetched in the light of this.
I don’t have a flock. Here, we have tribes, that’s the natural arrangement for chickens.
Flocks are for birds and geese.
You may find this a very strange viewpoint but the eggs belong to the chicken and in my view they can do what they want with their eggs; seems reasonable to me; even acceptable, apparently not to you.
If only I could get the hens to lay eggs in egg boxes!
Most hens here lay there eggs in the woods, the fields, on top of old tree stumps, under bushes and in my house; occasionally during the winter months or after a spat of predator attacks they might graciously consider making my life easy by laying in one of the egg boxes is their houses, I won’t be holding my breath.
