Free Rangers not laying in the coop

[spiceholler]

We have, on occasion, found that our hens are transient in the use of the coop to lay eggs. We do have at least one hen laying in my neighbor's barn, and to be honest, I think there might be others, but my neighbor is sometimes cagey and might not be truthful about how many eggs he's getting. His wife recently admitted to putting a decoy egg in their remote nest area!!!

That's one possibility. Ugh!

The other is we do have some "wilder" hens gifted to us by another neighbor, and I think they are convincing our formerly coop layers to lay elsewhere.

I plan to keep them in the coop today until noon. Has anybody else tried this technique?

I'm also thinking about running some curtains in front of the nest boxes??

Willing to try anything as at this point, we're getting very little return on our investment LOL. (we sell some of our eggs to cover the cost of feed because mostly our hens are used to help with our farm compost system)

 

[3KillerBs]

I have never had this problem because I have never free-ranged, but I have often read the recommendation that you retrain your hens to lay in their nests by confining them to their coop and run for a week or so in order to form the habit of laying in the nests provided.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Sounds like a mess. Not all hens lay before noon and some can hold the egg for a while. Keeping them in one day until they lay probably won't break their habit of where they are laying but it won't hurt. Sometimes it does. I don't know how long you can leave them locked in the coop based on your number of hens and coop size. Or do you have a run where you can keep them locked in your coop and run? Do your wilder ones sleep in the coop?

Sounds like you are not sure how many are laying. If you can't keep them locked up for a solid week then I'd try keeping them locked up until they have laid (not just until noon) before you let them out. If you can, try to train your wilder hens to lay in there too. I was able to retrain a hen by keeping all of them locked in the coop and run for a week. I also was able to block off that other nest which it sounds like you can't do.

You can try curtains if you want but you are talking about "former coop layers". The nests were good enough then. It should not hurt to put curtains on some of the nests. I don't think it will solve your problem but it is something to try. I've been wrong before. I assume you do have fake eggs in your nests?

The answer is to not let them free range, keep them in a run and on your property. At least your neighbors aren't complaining about them roaming on their property. They could. It's your responsibility to control your animals, whether they are chickens, dogs, or horses. But you'd have to sell a lot of eggs to pay to build a run to keep them contained, plus pay for extra feed if they can't forage. Maybe a small run just for emergencies like this.

That's why I call it a mess. I think the best you can do is to try to retrain them to lay in your coop. That's probably going to take time.