Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[Beekissed]

I'd do it for awhile as they all come into lay and they get used to using the nests for laying and then they can be let out whenever. You may still have to retrain to the nests now and again later on.

 

[Sally8]

Retrain is right. I've been letting mine out during the day while we are gone and I've been finding eggs in the dog coop, under the porch, under the utility trailer and on the screened in porch. (We leave 1 door open for the dogs to come on). As it's dark when I come home, I use a flashlight to find eggs. It's craziness! I do find that on the week end I have a couple that likes to stay in the coop and forage. What's that all about?

 

[delisha]

I have one chicken that lays her eggs in the open garage outside of the pen. The rest all lay in the same box. They all do because early on I originally kept my hens locked in the hen house when they started to lay.(35 years ago). Hens like to lay the eggs where they see other eggs. When they go broody they will hop into any nest that has eggs in it sometimes. I have 6 nest boxes and they use my cupboard instead. Chickens are funny creatures and very entertaining. I am just glad I do not have to go egg hunting.

Even though some would disagree, I would place golf balls or fake eggs in nests you want them to lay in and lock them up for a few days.It sometimes works, sometimes not. The hen who lays in the garage, I locked her up for a week and she layed in the nest box. As soon as I started letting her out she went back to the garage.

 

[Maven]

ok, thanks all!

I'll keep them in a little longer in the morning until I find an egg or two in the nest boxes!

Thanks!

 

[Sally8]

I have 15 hens of which 3 are what I've seen referred to as "not really chickens", lol) the other 12 I do find at least 6 in the nests. Soon enough, I won't let them wander everywhere. They have a huge run of their own. They'd rather be where they can look in the dining room window or on the screened in back porch. That actually will stop today. This reminds me of how much I hate stepping in poo and sliding. I can't keep them in any later. We leave at 6am. I'm not really complaining. It just sounds it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

My take on it. Fake eggs do help show them where to lay. It is not a cure-all but it does help. Another benefit, at least I think it is. A couple of times I've had snakes eat the golf balls. They could not crush them and could not get back out the way they got in. The hole they used was too small when they are full of golf ball. I usually don't bother a nonpoisonous snake unless it is eating eggs or chicks. In this case those eggs were soon rinsed off and back in the nests where they belonged. An ax works great in retrieving the eggs.

If the pullet is just starting to lay and just drops the egg at random, I'm not too concerned. She probably has not yet learned to control it. You can lock them in the coop if you want and if you built the coop big enough to start with, but I don't.

If the pullet is laying in the same spot every day, it is not at random. She has decided that is where she wants her nest to be. I've remedied this two different ways. I lock the flock in the coop for a week and remove the eggs from the outside nest. Sometimes this solves the problem. Sometimes I have to do it again a few times. Eventually it solves the problem but some of them can be pretty stubborn.

As an aside, I've noticed that a hen that was laying in the coop but then hid a nest sometimes goes broody in a month or two. Not always but sometimes.

The other thing I've done when I catch a hen setting on a nest and laying where I don't want her to, I'll take her off the nest and lock her in a nest box until she lays. I've done that three different times with different hens. That normally takes about a half hour for them to lay but I have had one that took 3 hours. She is the only one I had to do it to a second time. The other two caught on the first time.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Sooooooo funny!!! NYREDS might know full well how to keep chickens healthy....check the bars on the arm.

OT alert....officer on deck! All newbies please stand at attention and salute a superior officer.

RED, we've been playing around with fermenting the feeds and have found it much to our liking and are loving the results. I think I'm the only OT actually doing it, though.

Bill (NYREDS) is one of the very best contributors here on BYC. Bee, you'd actually appreciate his oft quoted, "the only items in my medicine chest for the chickens is a coccistat, poultry dust, and a hatchet". Bill is not only a premier breeder, but a well respected judge and one of the really straight, sometimes painfully honest, no nonsense guys here.

Salute indeed, well at least he gets mine.

 

[Beekissed]

Mine too! That's why I wanted to let folks know who he is and how respected he is as an OT on the BYC.

Didn't want anyone to think he needed any improvement on the health of his birds.

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

QUESTION:

I 'glugged' way more ACV in the waterer yesterday morning than I should have. I thought, well if they don't drink it I will switch it out. I had never read too much could hurt them, just that they won't drink it if you put more than they like. I usually put a few T in 3-5 Gallons. It came out way fast, I was distracted. About half the Braggs bottle, I think it is a liter? in a 1 1/2 - 2 gall pail. Woops.

I should have just dumped it. Well...I thought last night they were getting a cold. Lots of sneezing, acting weird, this morning there were some hiccups going on, but I changed the water (because the level was not going down like it should have so I knew they were not drinking as much as they should) and they seem improved today. BUT the weird thing, several of my girls have laid eggs much much lighter than they usually do. Has this happened to anyone before, or is this all coincidence? I really felt like the vinegar did it. Maybe they got it in their nostrils? I usually use a heated waterer, but have switched to a big dog bowl that is heated, because it is so much easier to top off or clean and fill every morning, versus taking apart the heated one in the cold with no hose to spray it down. My girls are all big so they can't fall in...but I do notice my Polish get their head feathers wet when they drink from this setup. They seemed to be affected the most yesterday.

 

[Beekissed]

I've overglugged before and never had any such symptoms...just noticed the chooks wouldn't drink the water if the ACV is too concentrated. No worries. Never had any lightening of the eggs either.