Hen won't leave eggs in the nest...

[duckaea]

HI.Last week I had 3 nine month old silkies, 2 hens and 1 rooster. Well on monday the rooster jumped on one of the hens and broke her neck.Leaving me with one hen. I was shocked, it happened so fast, like a split second. So now I'm trying to get the hen I have left to lay eggs in her nest so that she can hatch them. There are 5 eggs out there now. But she keeps rolling the eggs out of the nest and in front of the door every time she lays another.When she lays a new egg it's in front of the coop door. So I keep picking them up and putting them back in the nest. I wouldn't mind her doing this if it wasn't in front of the coop door.Obviously the coldest part of the coop. I just don't want her laying in the doorway for 21 days while she tries to hatch..I've tried to make the nest box as attractive as possible.It's fresh and clean and in a warm, private part of the coop. Am I doing the right thing? Will she get the idea or should I just let her sit where she wants? It's a small coop. About the size of a med sized dog house. There is a heat lamp out there and the coop is around 45-50deg F. all the time..If I keep putting the eggs back in the nest will she get the idea? I've also tried putting her on the nest hoping she'll get the idea. Any Idea's or coments would be helpfull. Thanks.

 

[Ridgerunner]

When I have a hen that has established a nest on the coop floor, I catch her while she is on her nest and lock her in the nest I want her to lay in until she has laid that egg. Usually that is about a half hour, but I had one hen that took over three hours. I've only had to do it for three hens. For two of those, they were laying in the nest the next day. For the other one, the one that took over three hours, I had to do it again the next day. But she got the message.

How high is the lip on your nest? I had a problem with the hens scratching out the fake egg then laying next to the fake egg until I raised the lip to about 5" to make it a lot harder for them to scratch the eggs out. A hen will sometimes pick an egg up and carry it, but at least this stopped the problem while they were just rearranging the bedding material.

 

[duckaea]

Hey Thanks Ridgerunner, I'm going to try to catch her tomorrow She laid an egg this morning that I picked up and put in the nest. I went out a little while ago and she was sitting in the nest, on the eggs. She only sat there for about an hour before getting off the nest. When she left I noticed some feathers in the nest. I know they'll pull out there breast feathers to get skin to egg contact before they start to sit. So hopefully she is starting to go broody now..I hope she gets the idea because I don't want to leave her to long with this rooster but I don't want her to be alone. Trying to intigrate new birds in with them would be a pain. so I figure just having her hatch her own and then getting rid of the rooster is probably the best thing to do. I know they are social animals and don't like to be alone.. What do you think? I don't have any other birds. These are just 2 pets in the back yard I got at 1 day old. Well I started with 4 chicks. 2 were roos.. I did take your advice. I raised the lip of the nest. I don't see how she can kick them out now. Thanks again. I'll let you know what happens..