I have an ark style couple. It is big enough to house 6 hens, which I have. It has a central roost with two nesting boxes on either end. For whatever reason all the hens want to use the same nesting box. I have one hen that is the dominate hen and today she got into a scrap with another hen that was in there laying. The other hen got banged up near her eye. It looks like the dominate hen drew blood, but I think it will heal just fine. My question is do I need to add another nesting box in there some way or is there from "Chicken Whispering" that needs to occur? -Rob (Pikeman94)
Same here. I have 4 nest boxes with 9 laying hens. They use one. Every once in a while I will find an egg in one of the other three, but not often. My nest boxes are on the smaller side (really need to make them larger) and I have found two hens squeezed in together. Once I had a brrody that was sitting eggs in the prefered nest (I would move her and she would somehow move all the eggs and her back into that box), well I have seen two girls get on top of her to try and lay. I have also seen a line of 4 hens, squacking at the one laying (I assume telling her to hurry up!) It is the same size as the other ones, I am not sure why they like it. but they do!
They are so funny about that, always developing a favorite or few favorite nest boxes. I have 19 nest boxes, and the same five are always used by everybody. Now and then an egg is laid in another nest, but I hear squabbles all the time when one hen takes too long in her chosen nest. I've seen a waiting line of three hens outside one nest box, with all those others available to them! Very normal. Hope your injured hen does okay. Remember to put Blu-Kote on any visible wound, so the flock doesn't go after the injury, which they often do.
I have 3 nesting boxes and they all have their favorite (((1)))....ANd that one, today, is taken by a newly broody hen! So I have had 3 other hens get into the nest with her to try and lay their eggs! I have had to take the broody out many times today so the others will lay.... They just don't know what to do! LOL! Luckily though they have never...knock on wood...been mean to eachother. THey have pushed and squaked but that's about it. And what is funny is that ALL the nests are the same. I will even take some of the feathers left behind and mix up the straw to get their "smell" in all the nests and wooden eggs in all of them....but NOPE! They just want 1 nest!
