EE strange nest behavior?!?

[Nicole01]

This is Sunshine aka "The nest hog". At first she was kicking everyone out of the other nest boxes if it was around her time to lay an egg. I swear, she'd make the hens wait all day to lay their eggs, due to this behavior and delaying her own laying of eggs. I had to sperate her from the others when this was happening. It was a big problem.

Now the nest hog has another problem. Whenever a hen just gets done laying their egg, she kicks them out without giving them a chance to recover and sits on their egg. I grab the egg from under her and she hops out and hangs out in the run. I've seen her sit on eggs before, but I think it's strange she is waiting for them outside the box and once that egg hits the nest box, she kicks the laying hen out to lay on their egg. She will go as far as pecking them on the comb or backside. She waits for me to pick up the egg and leaves.

She's never been broody, she lays for me every day. Is this typical hen behavior? Sunshine is 2nd or 3rd rank out of the 8 hens. Or is she a hen with strange nest behavior???

I have 3 nest boxes for the 8 hens, they only use 2.

 

[abbylane35]

I have an EE that was VERY young when she decided to hog the nesting boxes (I had a Maron doing this too at the same time.) We have 6 nesting boxes and 9 hens. I kept stealing her eggs and she would get very upset and cluck at me, get out of the nest, and pretty much go and tell the world that I took her egg. She would be hogging other's eggs too. I decided to let her keep her egg. I didn't check eggs under her for probably two weeks, expecting to see a dozen eggs under there...she only had one. I thought that she would end up breaking it. (By this time the other hen had given up...) I assumed that the EE would give up too. I didn't even check around "hatching" time, because I didn't think she would really hatch a chick...until I found it. The poor thing had made it's way out of the nesting box and had died from the cold (this was around Thanksgiving) before I discovered her. The EE hen still lays an egg every day, but she is not hogging the box anymore.

Of the 6 nesting boxes that I have, the hens only use two or sometimes three of them. I get 5-6 eggs per day at this point.

So, maybe if she wants to hog the box you should let her sit on the eggs...If you don't want to let her have everyone's eggs, mark one of the eggs under there with a pencil or marker and collect the others every day, leaving just that egg under her. Maybe that will get it out of her system...I haven't had any trouble with my EE since she sat for so long and hatched the chick. If she doesn't want to sit on the nest, I'm not sure what to do about her bossy behavior.

Good luck with her!

 

[cravenchx]

My Lucy is a nest hog also. She will sit in the box
and squawk for hours. The other ladies are squawking
also, because they want to get in the nest. I have 3 boxes
for 13 and they are all used. Lucy is the lowest of the chickens,
I just figured this was her way of getting back!