Curious about our chickens' laying behaviors

[bjinxed16]

We are wondering WHY....when a hen gets into a nesting box to lay her egg, another hen gets in after her and stands there crowding her...also, another hen or hens stand below the box and squawk, sounding almost like a goose! Why the bizarre ritual? They don't sound in distress....just doing their thing. ???

 

[Chick Charm]

Laying an egg in some flocks seems to take a whole team effort.

Funny how the others tend to squawk before the actual layer does. It's just something that some hens do. Even if you have plenty of other nests this can still happen.

Wish ya the best.

 

[chfite]

I haven't seen more than one hen in a box at a time, but it seems that they all participate in the vocal part of laying an eggs. I have heard several of them singing the egg song from 150 feet away from the coop. Pretty obvious that they had nothing to do with the laying, but they all celebrate.

Chris

 

[aggiemae]

One hen lays the others act as midwives...

sometimes, even though you have two (or even more) nest boxes to choose from and they are all exactly the same, the hen squawking on the roost just wants the other hen to get out of her preferred nest box.

We have eight hens which due to the noise is IMO the upper limit in an urban setting. One of them crows, it used to be once in a while but now it's every day. It''s a good thing that my neighbors love to get eggs or I an sure I would have been reported to animal control by now.