First egg and advice on nest boxes

[markmc]

Well--my daughter got her wish and one of the chickens laid our very first egg on her birthday. The only problem--it was not in the nest box--it was just sitting in the middle of the coop. A couple of weeks ago I put a couple of those plastic easter eggs that I painted white in the nest box with the hopes that the chickens would get the hint as to where to lay the eggs. Evidently that did not work. Any advice from you experts out there on any tricks that could work to get them to actually use the nest box. It is a large communal nest box (12"x12"x32"). Do you think I should put in some sort of dividers or just wait and see what will happen when they all start laying. I just dont want to have to spend a bunch of time searching every square foot of the coop for eggs. Thanks in advance.

By the way--here is the egg--it is a lot smaller than I was expecting but oh well!!!

 

[oliviad51]

Congrats on the Egg!!

What kind of bedding do you use in your box? Is it off the ground? You may want to put dividers in it...my hens don't seem to like large boxes. You also might want to try golf balls in the nesting box. My first egg was even smaller then that. They will get a lot bigger the more eggs she lays...what type of hen?

 

[Kittymomma]

First eggs are often quite small, but will get larger over the next few weeks. Pullets often lay quite a few double yolkers (or even triples!) the first few months so you and the kids will have that to look forward to as well. I wouldn't worry too much about her not laying in the box. The first few eggs seem to be a bit of a surprise to some pullets and most will start using the nest boxes fairly soon. A few floor eggs and/or eggs layed from the roost doesn't mean that it will be an ongoing problem, it just takes some of them a little while to figure things out. Congrats on the egg!