How do you find your freerange chickens eggs

My hens freerange but I coop them at night. When I put them in the coop, I left them there for a week while they got used to being in there. Now they almost always lay in the nest boxes in the coop even though they free range because it's where they are accustomed to. Every now and then I have a Marans hen who likes to hide her eggs but for the most part they are all in the box.

 

Listen for the egg song and follow it to the hen as she gets off her nest.
Most of my free rangers will go back to their coop to lay in the nests there.

 

i use to have free range chickens share a nest. well there was only three but i had a small cage built for chicks and had the door open and they would fly up every day and lay. i would find 2-7 eggs a day. made me happy.

 

Quote:I did the same and my hens walk back to the coop from wherever they are free-ranging to lay their eggs.
Whichever hen is the first to lay in the morning designates the "favorite nest box of the day" and that's the one everyone uses unless there's a traffic jam; then all the eggs are split between two favorite boxes.
I keep track of how many eggs I get each day, right now I average 11 eggs daily out of 14 hens. If that number was to suddenly drop then I'd be going on an easter egg hunt. So far, so good.

 

mine are kept in the run most of the day unless i am home,,which lately has been alot, in which case they are out from 7ish till 2-6pm.. we will all be out away from the coop and all of a sudden one will take off running back to the coop and about 15 minutes later she is back with the rest of the flock... she just laid an egg... pretty funny. so far i have had good luck with the laying in the nests

 

My Minorca never got the idea of laying in the next box. Her first place was behind the air conditioner, then on the backyard picnic table, then inside the dog house...if I kept her inside the run to try to get her to lay in the nest box, she would "hold it" until I let her out. Stubborn cluck!

 

even though my Banty chickens free range the hens always go in the coop to lay.. only time a hen doesn't lay in the coop is when she has a nest hidden somewhere ..where she plans to set and hatch them

 

Mine love the detacted garage. It is an older type with a heavy wooden door that I am not strong enough to lift on my own. So I turned a large tote on its side and piled hay in it, left her an egg in there and we have been doing great that way for a month now. I have a pole with a hook I can reach under the door and pull the tote out - then just push it back under. Thank Goodness the cats have decided to leave her alone! A few months back, the cats took her nest from her and she laid under a pom frond in the front horse's paddock. I have no clue how he avoided stepping on her! We couldn't find her until she hatched out 9 babies and brought them to the front door. Then we followed her back to the nest under the frond. Another one sat under a low palm tree and then started under the oak tree in the front yard. Ethel has not been as cooperative as Fred is about laying where we want her too. You never know where you may find them.

 

WIsh I could help, but mine always lay in the nests, no matter how far away from the coop they were when the urge hit. I've watched them literally run to the nest as fast as they could to lay.