Happy to Learn About Chickens!

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Christmas Chick

Christmas Chick

Hatching
Feb 24, 2015
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I am a new member as of today and am looking forward to getting some great tips from all of you "Pros"! I have learned a few things from reading some of your blogs before I joined. I have a problem with my chickens laying eggs out of the coop. They are a year old and this is a fairly new thing I discovered about them. I just thought they were not good producers. Any advice?

Christmas Chick
 
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

X2 do you have fake eggs or golf balls in the nests? This can signal to a hen where to lay. Also you may have to confine them to the coop until they learn where the proper place to lay is.

Good luck!
 
Some of the chickens (I have 6) are still laying in the box, and I have been leaving them for a day and marking them with a pencil so I can pull them the next day. Today, I have them confined in their coop and a run that we can attach to the coop. They re not happy about this, but after finding about 30 eggs in 2 nests on the property, I figured I better do something. I am afraid that raccoons will find them and then go after the chickens. Could the roosting box be too small?
 
Welcome to BYC!
frow.gif
I'm glad you joined our community.

X2 on the above posters. Also, are the nest boxes relatively dark? Hens like dark, secluded places for laying eggs.
 
Hello :frow and Welcome To BYC! Do you have multiple boxes for the six hens? Hens do like to share, but you may also have a submissive hen or two who does not like to argue with a bossy hen in the box, making her more likely to look for other nesting places. Boxes that are around 14" square are a good size for most hens.
 
I only have 2 boxes, and for a while I was getting 5-6 eggs a day. Then around daylight-savings time, my Araucana stopped laying (or so I thought!). Last week, my daughter found a nest under some ferns near our front entryway that had about 25 eggs in it and most of them were the blue-green of the Araucana. Of course they were no good since they were there for quite a while. She has always been the timid one, though she is beginning to hold her own. Is this variety known to prefer laying in private?
 

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