Dummy eggs

[Dogfish]

My chickens are about 15 weeks old, give or take a week, so in my estimation they will start to lay eggs in another 4-6 weeks. I made some roll out nest boxes, but the problem is that dummy eggs would just roll on out. My solution was to drill a hole through 4 golfballs, then secure the golfballs to the floor of the nest box. Maybe it is not needed, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Anybody else use dummy eggs?

 

[CalebtheChicken]

I used dummy eggs to get my first time layers to lay in the nests instead of roosting in them.

 

[gryeyes]

I use golf balls, but had the same problem when I built the rear rollaway nest box: no egg for the hens to see as an example, because it rolled away.


Hmmmmmm.

But the hens still used the rollaway - not ALL of them, some use the nest boxes in the other coops. They sleep in the Big Coop and lay eggs in the A-Frame coop. Silly birds!

(One hen consistently lays in the rollaway nest box. Maybe she thinks, "HA! now that Treat Lady can't take my egg - it's GONE!" Or, perhaps, "Geez, I have to do this every day, at least it's done and over with and no round thing left behind!")

 

[Rennie]

I have a dummy egg and also have a few real eggs (from other hens) in there too because i want a broody hen and i heard this helps ... At the minute though they are just using them as footballs and not even laying at all

Hopefully they will do what the are meant to do eventually