How do I train new chickens to lay eggs in nesting boxes?

[MelissaZeno]

I have a mixed flock they are 19 weeks old, should I start leaving them in their coop? If so for how long?

 

[mizqtie]

I have 7 hens, in the newcastle storm we just had we have had to move their pen, they normally are free range and go back to nest however since moving their nesting box out new layers and older layer are now nesting under our house, how can i teach them to use their nesting box? Do we have to pen them in their again?

 

[azygous]

Hi! Welcome to BYC! Do you realize this is a very old thread and that you can start your own thread and write a title for it more in keeping with what your problem is? Just click on "Start a new thread up at the top of this page.

But to answer your question, your hens have been displaced by the storm and it's rather a miracle they're laying at all with the stress they've just experienced. Your instinct to pen them back up until they get back to a normal routine is right on.

Their lives have been disrupted and they need to get back to good habits. If you let them alone, then laying under the house will become habit, and everyone knows how hard it is to break hens of a bad habit.

You might start all over as if they were new hens just coming to live in a new place and coop them up to imprint on them where home is. Give them several days, and they should be soon into new habits.