Egg Eaters won't use rollaway nest box

[canman47]

I'm new here and I think this has been covered before but forgive me for starting it again. I have 5 old hens that we inherited when we bought the house. All 5 only lay an egg or 2 a day but after they lay them they instantly eat them. They don't care about the shell, only eating the contents. I doubt they are protein deficient since I've been giving them scrambled eggs and pork loin lately. They just love eggs! Anyway the coop had nasty little nesting boxes that were small and difficult to clean so I spent a lot of time building rollaway nests with fake grass bedding. It has only been used once and it worked perfectly but they won't go in their nice new nests. I have to have the rollaway boxes or we get no eggs. I had golf balls in the old nests but in the new boxes they just roll away. I used to try different bedding in the old boxes but they would immediately remove it all preferring the plain wood floor. I'm getting a few pullets soon so would like to get things off to a good start.

 

[nuthatched]

Switch to a high protein layer feed and fill eggs with orange or yellow dish soap

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Make the nest boxes more attractive with something like hemp, that they can cozy down into and pull up around themselves. (Although I did see your reference to them preferring the plain wood floor.)

Find a way to make the golf balls stay put, or buy some ceramic eggs. (I found mine on Amazon.)