False alarms?

[RM44]

Do your chickens have false alarms when it comes to laying? On a few occasions I catch a hen in the nestbox, and I go back out after she's "done" and there's no egg. It hasn't happened often, but the "false alarm" today was one of my only 2 green egg layers, so I know for a fact she didn't lay after getting in and sitting in the box for a while. I've also seen a few other chickens do it on occasion. Is it normal?

 

[Ms.FuzzyButts]

Normal or not, mine do it too! So at the very least, I guess it's nothing to worry about. I think they just get a kick out of watching us run back and forth to look.

 

[TurkeyMountainChickens]

I have seen that too, upon occasion.

Sometimes a hen will be in the nest box, but jump on out when I come in with a treat for the birds. Maybe something distracted her before the laid? Did she come back and lay later?

 

[TurkeyMountainChickens]

Ms.FuzzyButts :

Normal or not, mine do it too! So at the very least, I guess it's nothing to worry about. I think they just get a kick out of watching us run back and forth to look.

LOL. Chickens do love us entertaining humans!​

 

[b.hromada]

Ms.FuzzyButts :

Normal or not, mine do it too! So at the very least, I guess it's nothing to worry about. I think they just get a kick out of watching us run back and forth to look.

 

[rancher hicks]

Happens to me too. I suspect they like to tease us and come back and lay the egg in another nest to confuse us. I swear I heard the hens giggling when I left the coop empty handed once.

 

[RM44]

Thank you all. I'm glad I'm not the only crazy chicken person who goes out five million times a day to check for eggs only to come back empty handed. Does it ever get old?

And yes, mine will hop out of the nest box if I have treats or fill up the feeder while they are in the box. I try to give them privacy try not to feed or treat if anyone is in the box, but with 11 hens, someone's almost always in one of the boxes.