crazy girls think theres only one nest box

[Miss Lydia]

We have a wonderful house for our chickens and ducks they each have their own side with plenty of nest boxes, well I have a friend who visits alot of yard sales so I asked her to be on the look for a used cat litter box complete with top. Well she found me one, I cleaned it out good, just dusty then put it in the duck house at the inside door to chicken house, well now there is nothing being used to lay eggs in but that, They even wait in line to go in I've even seen 2 bantams at one time in it, so why would this be so popular when they have wonderful nest boxes? Hens are so funny. Maybe someone else has a story about what their hens like for nest boxes. My friend also found a small animal crate that I'll be bringing home this weekend, wonder if it will be the next favorite place to lay?

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Chickens don't like to think for themselves and therefore are slaves to the latest fashion trend. Remember this the next time you're at the mall. Chickens are flock animals and find safety in conformity. If they see somehen laying an egg somewhere they figure it must be a good, safe place and therefore want to lay their own eggs there too.

They especially like cozy enclosed places and that litterbox must make them feel the safest. You can add a fringe made from an old cut t-shirt to the top of the other nest boxes, they may like that too. My hens like those enclosed litterboxes, we also use flat-sided plastic feed buckets.

 

[Sphinx]

My husband built this lovely henhouse for the chickens, complete with 6 nesting boxes. When we moved them in, only one chicken was laying, and she always was in the second box from the right. She abruptly stopped laying about two weeks ago, but one of the other girls has started laying, and she has chosen the same box.

Today I tossed three golf balls into three of the other boxes to see if they can be tricked.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Thanks ya'll for responding to my post, I have so much fun living with these chickens and ducks. They are so funny! And you know what Sunny_side_up? It's been years since I've been to the mall, my idea of going shopping is hitting the thrift stores. Never been into trends thank goodness!!

 

[savingdogs]

While sunnysideup's explaination sounds much more scientific and accurate, my thoughts on this (as my chickens all favor the same nest too...I have about 12 layers now and they use only two of the seven nests) is that they all want to think THEY laid all those eggs and take credit for laying a whole clutch.

Could it have something to do with wanting to lay clutches of eggs?

We did encourage them to use the other nests using golf balls and it did help, but they still favor the two nests 90 percent of the time.

 

[Sjisty]

My girls line up like an airport runway! We had five boxes in each of two coops and four in another, but there were only three of the 14 boxes being used. We just remodeled, took the boxes out of one coop, kept five in the other, and made one oversized on in the third coop. Now they use the oversized one, two to three hens at a time with the others waiting, not so patiently, for their turn. Crazy chickens!

 

[SmartyChick]

haha, we have plenty of boxes and a golfball in each. But everyday all the golfballs are gathered up into one box with all the eggs. All the hens wait not-so-patiently in line to lay in ONE box, not very fun when there is 8 of them. We just put one of those dog Igloos onto the chicken run for a toy and now they are laying in that...you can't win.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:
I'm right there with ya, Miss Lydia, and I have 3 boys who thankfully are also not trend-followers. But I can't help comparing those who do with the behavior of my hens lined up waiting their turn at THE current popular nest box.

 

[savingdogs]

There must be a reason why all our chickens tend to do that.

When we were building out coop, my hubby thought if we had 12 chickens we should have 12 nest boxes.

Good thing we consulted BYC!

 

[Boo-Boo's Mama]

We have 22 chickens so we did 5 boxes. Well, they all want to use the large box and they pile in on top of each other..as many as 5 at a time. We worked the last two days making room for more large boxes. Today they were crowding in the smaller boxes; 4 big ole things in one small box. I'm ready to pull my hair out. Then there is Dolly, the alpha hen who makes it her job to constantly check to see who is in the nest boxes and if they are not from her group (red sex links) then she pulls them out by their heads. The last week I've had a lot of new pullets to start laying...have had to stay in the run to protect them from Dolly and her mob! Geez! Once they lay I put them in jail so the newbies can lay peacefully!