Hen Protecting Her Nest box?

[chemew]

One of my chickens just laid her first egg yesterday. Everyone was very excited! Today when I was in the coop, the "laying" chicken wouldn't let any of the other hens near the nest box where the eggs was as if she were saying "This is mine. Go find your own." Has anyone seen this behavior before?

 

[Kaeta44]

I've not seen this behaviour with my chickens. However, did you remove her egg from the nest box? If not, you need to do that. I'd also lift the chicken out of the coop and put her in the run - see if that helps.

Otherwise, just let the flock sort things out among themselves.

ttp://muckycluckers.blogspot.com/

 

[Evelle]

no i havent thats kinda cool.
ive seen them protect it when they are in it but even my broody hen shared the box i had to mark my eggs cuz i had so many eggs in her box i was confused stared with 5 ended up with 12 hahaha thats when i started marking she had almost to many to sit on. they popped out all over the place.

 

[chemew]

I did remove the egg. I just went to check again and found she had sratched the bottom of the next box clean - almost as if she were looking for something. I wonder if I should put a fake egg or a golf ball back inside...

 

[Whispering_Raven]

Quote:
When my girls first started laying I took all the eggs, then they did the same thing. Scratched the nests, squawked a squealed. My neighbor has been raising chickens for years and said to mark the eggs with an "X" or with a number and always leave one. He said numbers work better, which I tend to agree (tried both ways) so you know which eggs are the most recent and take the ones with the low numbers (first layed) and the leave the highest number in the nest(s). He told me to always leave one egg in the nest and they will continue to lay in that spot. It works for me!