Hen has begun laying in run

[chickenlady12]

Hi All. My hens, one Speckled Sussex and a Leghorn, will be 1 this summer. The Leghorn has been laying one good egg a day since January. The Speckled Sussex began laying a month or so later, not always every day, and every so often an egg with a squishy shell, but mostly good eggs. For the last two days, the Leghorn has begun laying in the run. Just popping out her egg and letting it roll over to the edge! Yesterday's egg was fine -- today's shell looks slightly less opaque, but otherwise fine. I can't imagine what her problem is! About a month ago, I built them a portable grazer and they spend a few hours each day in a new place, scratching around. They are usually happy to go out. The Leghorn has been a little reluctant lately, but eventually goes and doesn't complain. The last two days has been rain, and they have stayed in the run. They roost in the same spot in the henhouse every night and I recently cleaned out the poop, so it's pretty clean. I raked the run today, where I found evidence of at least three more weird eggs, though they must be the Speckled Sussex's, because I would notice if the Leghorn didn't lay. Any ideas? Should I worry?

 

[jenniferpowell]

If their shells aren't looking right they probably need calcium. Some people feed the egg shells to their chickens, but if you do that your hens may pick up a nasty habit of eating their eggs. You can buy oyster shells at a feed store (you should find them in the poultry feed section) and put them out in a different dish or feeder than what their food is in and that should help your eggs turn out better. Also if you put like the plastic Easter eggs or ceramic eggs or something like that in their nesting boxes that should help them stop laying in the run

 

[Rocky Rhodes]

How many hens do you have? Do you have enough nest boxes? I had a hen laying her eggs on the ground in front of the nests, so I added a couple more nests and she hasn't laid anymore on the ground.

 

[chickenlady12]

Thanks, but I don't think that could be it. I only have the two hens. The coop is 5 feet by 2.5 feet. I had three nesting boxes (we lost some of our chickens to disease, I'm new to owning chickens) and when these two started laying, they would never use a box. They both use the corner of the coop hardest to reach -- undoubtedly trying to stop me from taking their eggs! Every so often, the Sussex will lay in the opposite corner, or some other weird spot in the coop. Neither of them likes laying in the portable grazer, though the Sussex will if she has to, so I try to wait for them to lay before I put them out. One day the Leghorn was in the portable grazer freaking out -- who knew why -- so I put her back in the run so she'd stop making such a racket, and she immediately ran in the coop and lay her egg. So she was all fussy about where to lay, now she's just popping them out anywhere!

 

[chickenlady12]

Thanks, I didn't know that about calcium. I feed them all sorts of weird scraps -- popcorn, pretzels, pizza crusts. They won't eat strawberries or most vegetables, didn't like the ear of corn or the grapes, but they LOVED Spam! I wondered if they weren't getting enough protein -- maybe there weren't enough worms and bugs in the run anymore -- that's partly why I made the grazer. I will try the oyster shells.

I tried the "decoy egg" routine to try to get them to lay in the boxes I could reach easier, but no dice. I don't mind getting the egg out of the run, I just thought it was a weird and disturbing change of behavior and wondered if it was bad or something.