Egg Theatrics - how to ID the perpetrators

[GreenHaven]

I have a small flock of 7 hens. I have a community nest for them, which has 2 nests in a small house built just for egg laying. They were using it last year, but this year I am finding eggs on the ground under the roosts (YUCK). I set up a camera in the community nest - to see if bullying is occurring and record who is laying but I cannot make out their leg bands on the recordings so I can't tell who is who. I looked into wing bands and those would nest under the feathers. So I need a way to identify from the top where the camera is. In frustration, I purchased a small dog house and put another nest in there to see if perhaps that might helo. It didn't although some hens do use this nest. This morning after finding another egg on the ground, I put the dog house right in front of the coop and put the egg from the ground into the nest to demonstrate where it belongs. (Don't laugh - I'm desperate.)

When I came back out it had been kicked out of the nest and the dog house (two 4" high barriers to get it out - so this was a real project!).

SO: 2 questions really:

1) Does anyone have any ideas on why this behavior might be occuring and what I can do about it?

2) Does anyone have any ideas on ways to make hen ID simpler for the camera? Maybe ribbons of different colors? (But how to attach safely so they don't get injured in some obscure fashion I'm not thinking about?)

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Hi, sorry you are having problems. Cannot answer all your questions but can assure you that putting fake eggs or golf balls in the nests where you want your hens to lay is very common practice and it really does help. When hens see an egg in a nest it tells them, this is a safe place to lay my egg.

Good luck finding answers to your other issues!

 

[GreenHaven]

Thank you. I do have them in the nests. They do usually work. This flock is 2 so it’s a newer phenomenon that occurred after their molt.