Chicken pooping in her egg laying nest!

[DaisyDo39]

When I go outside to Daisy's coop, I see that she poops when she sleeps in her nest. There are two nests nextto wach other. One for her egg laying and one for nightime roosting. She ends up laying her eggs in the spot she poops in! I have to fish them out, and its not pretty. Is there a way to make them lay somewhere else?

 

[Cacique500]

She shouldn't be sleeping in the nest. Your roost bar should be higher than the nest and then she'll go up there to sleep.

 

[justplainbatty]

When I go outside to Daisy's coop, I see that she poops when she sleeps in her nest. There are two nests nextto wach other. One for her egg laying and one for nightime roosting. She ends up laying her eggs in the spot she poops in! I have to fish them out, and its not pretty. Is there a way to make them lay somewhere else?

Why is this bird not roosting? Most birds sleeping in a nest are either broody or sick.

 

[justplainbatty]

She shouldn't be sleeping in the nest. Your roost bar should be higher than the nest and then she'll go up there to sleep.

Good point too! Also, is there enough room for her to roost? (at least 8" per bird, one foot each is better).

 

[Kendrain]

Roosts higher than the nests. Good point. I had to raise mine but still on occasion have some poppy eggs. Maybe even a little higher will have to be done. Or lower the boxes. I see some redesigning happening soon.

 

[aart]

Once they get in the habit of sleeping in the nests they will probably need to be 'trained' to sleep on the roost.

First make sure you have a nice wide roost, 2x4 wide side up work very well, that is at least a foot higher than the nests.
Roost length should be about 1 foot per bird so there's plenty of room for everyone to get settled.

Go into coop well after dark and remove birds from nests by holding their wings tight to their sides,
place their feet on the roost and give them a few seconds to get their feet steady under them and calm a bit,
then slowly let go. After doing this for a few days to a couple weeks they should all be going up on the roosts at dusk by themselves.


My experience was that I had some pullets that the older birds wouldn't let roost with them so the pullets wanted to roost in the nests. I put up another roost just a couple inches lower than the main roost and began removing the pullets from the nests after dark and putting them on their roost. Did that for a couple nights, then started going in at dusk and poking them in butt if they got into the nests(I have 'outside the coop' access to my nests boxes so this was easy). Pretty soon all I had to do was walk in and they would leave the nest and go to the roost so they didn't get poked in the butt. Took about 3 weeks total before they got in the habit of always roosting on the roosts instead of in the nests.

 

[Kendrain]

I had two of the newbies sleeping in the nesting boxes. So for the last 3 nights I take them out and put them on the roost. Tonight one had moved to the roost by herself. Yay. Thanks for the advice. Never had this before so it is working great.