I'm not too worried about losing a few eggs or hatch rates, we get more than enough eggs to cover our needs (and then some) and we have two other broodies sitting on eggs plus a dozen eggs in our incubator. Also, our chickens don't lay in nesting boxes for the most part. A couple do but the rest lay in the corners of the coop. Before someone makes suggestions, I've tried literally every trick in the book to get them to lay in the boxes. They're not having it. So adding boxes won't make a difference. And I don't think kicking hens off the eggs will matter either as they don't sit on them all the time. One will sit for a few hours and then go stretch her legs and then another will immediately come along and take her place. And who ever is sitting on them at the end of the day will sit on them through the night. They're definitely not sitting there to lay as there are no new eggs added to the clutch and they act very broody when I get near them. (Some aggressively so.) Like I said, it's like they're taking shifts.
