I haven't been on here for so long, I have a hen with a bad habit I need to break ASAP. My hen (Eclipse) started laying 4 days ago. On the second day, I couldn't find her egg, so I was walking towards the coop and saw an eggshell and yolk on the ground. My chickens sleep in the tree above their coop. I looked up and saw my hen right above where the egg was. She laid while she was in the tree! I thought she was just not wanting to lay in a nest box, so I brushed it off. But today she laid in the tree again. So I thought I would take it to backyard chickens. Please, we need to make this behavior stop.
Any way that you can convince them to start sleeping in the coop? Sleeping in the tree they are vulnerable to predators - especially the Great Horned Owl.
Yes, they obviously don't feel the coop is "home". Your hen is quite young, so this behavior can be corrected. But you need to do it ASAP. What I recommend is to round up your flock and install them in the coop with plenty of food and water. Then close them in for several days to a week. This should re-program them to associate the coop with a sense of security. Otherwise, what you have now is a wild flock with no control over them.
I agree. This is how I teach my young chickens that the coop is their new home. Otherwise they keep trying to get in the broody pen that they have outgrown.