golf balls? really?

[jeepguy982001]

sry for the triple post don't know what happened

 

[Chris09]

I use Plastic Easter Eggs.

Chris

 

[gryeyes]

I started with plastic Easter Eggs, filled them with sand and glued them shut. That's when my first small flock got close to laying age. I don't know if they worked because they were moved around so much by the pullets they eventually got cracked open. So I just scrounged for a few golf balls in amongst the crap I had packaged from some earlier moves (Why do I even HAVE golf balls?? But I did....) and started using them.

The golf balls work well for this purpose. I leave them out all the time, because I do have young pullets coming into laying almost all the time.

 

[so lucky]

When my first girl started laying, she laid one in the nest box, then one on the floor. I put golf balls in the nest boxes, and I have not found eggs anywhere but the nest boxes since--three months so far.

 

[ChickenKid11]

Golf balls worked for me!!!!! I would use them.

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

I couldn't find golf balls when I needed them and was too cheep to buy them. I had some plastic Easter Eggs so I put those in the nests and they totally work. I've NEVER had a chicken lay anywhere but one of my three nest boxes.

And for a while, I had two hens fighting over one nest. So I took the plastic eggs out of that nest and put them in the least desirable nest and almost immediately they switched to laying in that nest. I think they perceive that the nest w/ more eggs is more desirable and safer if others have laid their eggs here already so I'm going to lay mine here.

 

[LT]

We had golf balls in all four of our nest boxes, and every egg has been laid in the nest boxes with the exception of a few miss-fires early on. The golf balls work for sure.

 

[chickenprison]

We have 12 chickens and 4 boxes. They seemed to favor one box. When I first added the golf balls it took a couple of days but they finally moved to the other boxes.
I think now that my chickens have a leader and they follow the leader.
There are some days all 12 eggs are in one box. There has been days we had eggs in every box. And a couple of days one egg on the ground.
I have even seen 3 try to sit in the same box at the same time.
Any way golf balls did seems to work in the beginning.
Now I think the chickens do whatever they want to do and that is to keep me guessing!

 

[Aemelia]

I used golf balls they are still in my nest area in fact, my pullets have never laid an egg in there. Whatever. I clean the coop in the morning (I use sand instead of bedding) then when they lay their eggs on the ground where they sleep (instead of on the roost!) it's nice and clean...stupid chickens.

So yeah golf balls didn't help me in the least.

 

[chickenbythesea]

I've got the golf balls in there and in the past 4 weeks not once have they laid an egg in the box. They've laid them from off the roost, or on the floor and not even in the little nests they're making on the floor... just some random spot. I'll keep the golf balls there but really wish they'd get the hang of it.