Eggs, Eggs, and More Eggs - WHAT?????

[Navymanswife]

This is my first time raising chickens and I have been anxiously checking every morning for eggs. I have five hens and one (surprise) roo...

This morning, went out to the pen and a chicken was missing - got scared for a while but found in outside the pen, in the bushes - WITH A DOZEN EGGS! First, very happy - second, confused.

Do I move her and the eggs back into the pen into a nesting box?

Why did she not use the nesting boxes? Is there a trick to getting them to use them?? Clearly she preferred a "pen-break" and nested in the weeds....

How do I know if the eggs are usable?

How long can they stay outside before spoiling?

She could not possibly have laid all these in one night - right?

Are they all hers or do hens "share" on the nesting of eggs?

And those are the questions just off the top of my head....I did the float test on one of them. No float - based on my reading, that's good.


Gosh - I never thought I'd be so excited to see EGGS!!!! But now, I have so many at once and I have no idea when it started!!! Funny little buggers....

 

[McGobs]

you could try putting a couple fake eggs in their nestboxes, and that may entice them to lay where they are supposed to. (fake plastic easter eggs, golf balls, light bulb...whatever..they will sit on anything)

I would really doubt all those eggs are the work of one chicken. But...depending on how long they have been laying, it is possible. For the most part, your girls are going to lay an egg every day or every couple of days. Don't believe there is any bird that will lay 12 overnight.

I have 30 birds...and they all use they same 2 nestboxes (theres 10 boxes). Not sure its about sharing, but they just seem to follow the one in front of them. Sometimes I walk in and see two or three ding-dongs crammed into one box, all trying to lay an egg at the same time.

 

[Texas Chickens]

Chickens seem to like to use 1 or 2 nest boxes to lay their eggs in. Community thingy. I can have nest boxes for all of them and they will lay in one or 2 boxes only.

It sounds like everyone decided to lay in 1 area and now she is sitting on them all.

That can be a problem if they all continue to lay where she is and she is sitting on eggs. You need to mark the ones she is sitting on and take the ones that are not marked each day or she might just sit and sit on eggs hatching out them as they get to the 21 day mark and continue to sit the others that are not hatched out or she might take the ones that have hatched and leave the ones that are still trying to be chickens to die...

 

[Navymanswife]

Well, as I sat here and wrote this post, we got another egg!! One hen laid this one in the nesting box!! Woo Hoo! So, at least one of them has figured it out!

I will try the fake egg thing.....hopefully that will get them back to the boxes....

Do you think they are usable or should I just leave this batch alone? Should I move these to the boxes??

 

[Texas Chickens]

If the same hen is still sitting on the nest in the bushes leave her alone if not take the eggs up.

 

[Navymanswife]

Thanks!! Will keep watching!!