Hen scared of eggs??

[SheenaBee]

I have one girl who just started laying, she is in the house still after recovering from a dog attack a couple months ago and not climatized to the cold winter weather. She will not lay an egg if there is still one in her nest box. And they are her own! She works diligently to roll them out of the nest onto the open floor before she will even consider going into the box to lay again. Has anyone seen this before?

 

[autosuf]

I have never seen it or heard of that behavior.
Chickens usually prefer to put where another laid an egg and do not distinguish themselves or others at the time of start to incubate. It is enough that there are several eggs in the nest for her maternal instinct to wake up, especially the older ones.

Chickens like to live in a group and generally like to put them all in the same nest.
That yes, they like to choose and that is why it is convenient that they have more than one nest, at least two.

With a single nest do not feel satisfied and tend to develop strange behaviors like putting in any corner on the floor.
If she is alone and has only one nest, it is possible that this is the cause of her strange behavior revived by the stress of the bad memory of the dogs.
If she is accompanied and has more than one nest, it does not occur to me that it may be the cause of her strange behavior.

 

[aart]

Yup, that's odd....but chickens do odd things at times.
Collecting her egg daily should avoid any broken eggs.
I had pullet wouldn't lay in a nest with fake egg...just at first, she got over it pretty quick.

 

[SheenaBee]

I didn't want her depressed while recovering, so she has her 'best friend', my only other Silkie who happens to be a Rooster. They seem to get rather upset whenever they're separated. She has a couple nest choices and has used both.
All of my other hens out in the coop would all want to use the same nest box if they could.
I guess my little Silkie girl is just an oddball. Maybe in her mind refusing to sit anywhere near another egg is a version of chicken birth control, lol. "I REFUSE to take a chance and ending up with those fuzzy squirmy things running around!"