Can I Do This to Keep My Hens AWAY????

[iwiw60]

Okay, so most of you know I have 4 Black Australorp gals, #1 hen is laying just fine, nice eggs, always in the first nest box.

Then there's #2 hen...I call her Ms. Neurotic. She accidentally laid her first egg overnight while roosting and has since laid every egg up in the POOP TRAY! Here's the poop tray setup:



So I resigned myself to the fact that I have a poop tray layer (aaack!) and have been dealing with it. Yesterday she bwoked and bwoked, this was around 9am. For some reason I thought "alright already!" So I went into the coop and did the daily cleanup of the poop tray earlier than usual. Not 10 minutes later that silly girl laid her egg in the poop tray! Guess she wants her area clean...I don't know....

NOW FOR TODAY!! Around 8am I hear Ms. Neurotic bwoking her fool head off yet again and figured she wanted that poop tray cleaned so she could lay her egg. So I went out there to do my duty, walked in and YIKES!! There was already TWO eggs in the poop tray! One looked like it could have come from Ms. Neurotic, the other was a soft-shell. Oh, NO! Another poop tray layer???

I collected the good egg, cleaned the poop tray up like usual, and now as I watch the webcam Ms. Neurotic is doing her daily thing...bwoking like mad, up to the poop tray, outta the poop tray, up and down up and down. So! I'm now thinking that the two "late-bloomers" laid their first egg(s) just like Ms. Neurotic did her first lay, and I now have the possibility of THREE POOP TRAY LAYERS??? Say it isn't SO!!

Out of sheer desperation of not knowing how to reverse this behavior today I'm going to cut up a small tarp to stretch across the width of the poop tray...see those uprights on either side? I'm going to put a nail in the top of each of them and "drape" a short piece of tarp across it each morning when I first go outside. Yes it'll be a lot of extra work, but I just hate the thought of them laying their eggs up there......no way, Jose' !!!

Does anyone have a better idea how to deal with this....HELP!!!

 

[Allyhoward18]

I'm fairly new to chicken keeping and this may be easier said than done but when she starts wanting her poop tray cleaned, go down to her and pick her up and put her in the nest box, make sure it's really comfortable, dark and off the ground and hopefully after a few days she will get to know that you want her to go in the nest box and hopefully she will find it a lot more comfortable too and begin to prefer it there. Also have you tried fake eggs in the nest box? Every morning place her ontop of a fake egg and she will hopefully lay next to that one

Like I said I'm new to chickens so that could be totally wrong but that's just my thoughts

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Hens are genetically programed to lay on bare naked ground, in covered out of the way (safe) places. Lacking that I suspect that your hen chose what to her represented the best of these two alternatives. Either laying in a snug nest box or choosing bare naked ground. Put a layer of the material you use on your board in a nest box and see if hen doesn't discover the best of both worlds in her next nest location.

 

[iwiw60]

I'm fairly new to chicken keeping and this may be easier said than done but when she starts wanting her poop tray cleaned, go down to her and pick her up and put her in the nest box, make sure it's really comfortable, dark and off the ground and hopefully after a few days she will get to know that you want her to go in the nest box and hopefully she will find it a lot more comfortable too and begin to prefer it there. Also have you tried fake eggs in the nest box? Every morning place her ontop of a fake egg and she will hopefully lay next to that one

Like I said I'm new to chickens so that could be totally wrong but that's just my thoughts

Yes to all your questions...been there, done that:





So frustrating!

 

[iwiw60]

Hens are genetically programed to lay on bare naked ground, in covered out of the way (safe) places. Lacking that I suspect that your hen chose what to her represented the best of these two alternatives. Either laying in a snug nest box or choosing bare naked ground. Put a layer of the material you use on your board in a nest box and see if hen doesn't discover the best of both worlds in her next nest location.

These are their nest boxes....frustratin' isn't it???