Hen keeps moving eggs?

[AshleyB]

*I posted this on Managing Your Flock and found this board and thought it belonged here instead

We bought 3 laying Brahmas and a Brahma roo about 2 weeks ago. The hens are laying an egg a day, and we keep noticing that the eggs are moving. When my husband goes out to feed and let them out in the mornings, he always checks the eggs and waits to let our girls get them later in the day. We have noticed several times that an egg has been moved to a different nesting box. There are 4 nesting boxes, and they have never laid in 2 of them.

This morning there was 1 egg in a box. Whenever we went to put the chickens in for the evening, there were 3 eggs. They were all in a makeshift nest one of them has made in the little common area joining the nesting boxes. Why are our chickens moving their eggs? We haven't seen any sign of broodiness that we know of, though we are still pretty new to chickens and still don't know how everything works. But none of the hens stays on the nest for an extended period of time. They just lay and go about their business. Why would they move their eggs into one nest?

 

[Bunnylady]

Chickens don't pick eggs up and carry them. If there was an egg in one box, and then there wasn't one in that box but there was one in another box, then most likely something (possibly the chickens) ate the one that was in the first box, and another egg was laid in the other box.

A chicken might knock an egg out of the box if she got in and started scratching around. For some reason, hens seem to like laying eggs in the same place. I have had situations where hens had several boxes of different sizes and at different heights to choose from, and they all chose the same nest box. It might not be the same box two days running, but most of the eggs were together, in whichever box was the box of choice on that particular day.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why are you leaving eggs lying around? IME, that just opens up a window of opportunity for something else (besides you) to come along and eat them. Hopefully it isn't the chickens, egg eating chickens are a real nuisance! I make a point of removing eggs at whatever time I find them; too many times, when I came back for an egg, it wasn't there any more.

Hens go broody in their own time. Some breeds hardly ever go broody; others are like hens on a mission! Some people will put artificial eggs (or even golf balls) into a nest to try to induce a bird to go broody. That way, there aren't any real eggs lying around to get eaten or go rotten, and no reward for anything that might eat an egg that is just lying around. Once a hen commits herself to brooding, real, fresh eggs are substituted for whatever fakes were used.

 

[FireTigeris]

I disagree they do, they -do- pick up egs, they roll then up their body under the wings, trap them there and carry them... I have seen it.

If fact one of my broody hens I have to open her wings when I move her from a collecting nest else she hides eggs when she hears me coming.

 

[AshleyB]

Thanks so much for the replies. I need to clarify letting the girls pick them up later in the day. We don't leave them out there for days on end. Our girls like to gather the eggs, so we leave them to let them gather. They love to see how many eggs we've gotten! They don't always lay at the same time, but we make sure the eggs are gathered within a couple of hours. We did leave an egg for a day the other day (the day I posted this) to try to figure out what was going on with the moving. It was a lot lighter than any other egg that has been layed, so we decided to leave it to see if it would be in the same nest as the morning. And it wasn't! I can't figure out why they would be moving eggs?

 

[dainerra]

Mine move eggs all the time. Who knows why. Sometimes a broody hen will gather up ALL the eggs into one nest, but the others will do it too.

 

[FireTigeris]

It only takes minutes to move an egg- I collect twice a day do to the heat here.