Hen covering up eggs

[Freerange Chick]

My hens have just started laying in the last 2 weeks.

Yesterday while working on the coop, I noticed one hen who was hanging out in the nest. Although I have 9 nests on the wall, they seem to like the hay bale below it to nest so I just put some boards around it. This is were they all go to lay so far. They have made one nest in it. Anyway, I noticed this hen sitting for a while and moving hay around. I had put a fake wooden egg on the other side, and in a couple of the other nesting boxes, to help spread the eggs around since they all wanted to lay in just on nest. She went over to were the fake egg was and covered it with hay. Is this normal?

 

[smarsh]

she probably just fidgeting around prior to laying an egg. It probably wasn't her intent to cover the egg, just trying to incorporate it into the nest or something. I don't know if you have ever taken in mammals being born and how much up and down and re-arranging of bedding that can take place. I am guessing it was just her doing the same.

 

[Freerange Chick]

she probably just fidgeting around prior to laying an egg. It probably wasn't her intent to cover the egg, just trying to incorporate it into the nest or something. I don't know if you have ever taken in mammals being born and how much up and down and re-arranging of bedding that can take place. I am guessing it was just her doing the same.

Thanks smarsh. This makes sense. No hopefully they will start "fidgeting around" in the real nests! lol

 

[Peeps61]

I've taken eggs out of the one nest and spread them around to the other nests to encourage them to use other nesting boxes. I've watched the hens, and they don't like that! They will literally scratch all the eggs back into one nesting box, so I just left them alone. I sometimes find 3 or even 4 hens in one nesting box. It's hilarious!