Egg laying question

[schmoo]

Wow it's nice to have an egg laying question for once. My girls just started laying on Friday, and I found another egg on Sunday

Sorry about how long this is but I wanted to explain fully.

Heres what happened. This morning I saw sunshine in the nest, no birds bugging her. Then I had to go to the store. I came back and a different girl (caramel) was in the SAME nest. I stood there watching for a minute and some of the other girls were totally harassing her. Pecking and poking at her and I chased them off, but they were very aggresive towards me and wanted to GET to her.

Anyways I petted her and told her to ignore them, and when she stood up there was 2 eggs. Yea girls

The question is -Why the heck were they bugging her so bad? Is that normal? The ones that were bugging her I don't think are laying yet, so it's not like they wanted the nest. It does seem like a favorite nest already 3 of my 4 eggs were layed there. I've never read anyone having this issue.

 

[FrankBlissett]

Is she the bottom of the peck order? If so, then maybe she's so good at staying out of everyone's way that it's the only time they can "put her in her place". That's all I can think of. We have two Pheonix hybrid pullets we got at the fair and they're definitely bottom of the rankings - BUT they're also MUCH faster and more agile than the Isa Browns. Maybe when they finally start setting they'll get their come-upance for not waiting around earlier to be pecked upon.

-Frank

 

[akcskye]

It could be that the others are feeling the inclination to lay...or at least the broody instinct, perhaps, and want to be the head hauncho of the nest box.

I ended up having 4 ladies sharing the same 12 eggs in the same nest box...when one would get up, the others would fight over the eggs and pull them under them, then when they'd get up, the others would do the same...and sometimes there was some pecking going on between the moma's 2 be.