How to stop chicken from laying while roosting????

[2-acre-zoo]

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COOL! Nice invention.......

 

[Buff Oreo]

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thats a great idea, but how do you keep them from pooing in them? also if your grocer wont give you a milk crate [some actually cant because the milk companies keep them.] then get one off ebay. they sell relatively cheep

never more than 5$ [i think] and they screw right on the wall.

 

[This_chicks_place]

Milk companies charge the grocers a deposit on every milk crate, that's why your store is reluctant to give you one. Walmart/Target sell the same type of crates. Look near the rubbermaid tote aisle.

 

[mstricer]

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I've seen them in our family dollar store

 

[Fabidon]

Thank you all for the wonderful input. The funny thing is since she dropped the egg in the same place three nights in a row, I put a box with hay under that spot and darned if she didn't move to a different spot the next two nights.

Unfortunately we lost one of our girls to an early fox attack today and I won't know if it was the bomber until another day or two goes by. We are devastated at the loss because we have become so attached to our girls. Looks like their free ranging days are over and they will have to be limited to the smaller security fenced area until we can come up with some other plan if at all possible.

You folks are great and are such a good source of information. Thank you again.

 

[mtnhens4]

I'm so sorry for your loss, I know that even a fox has to eat but geeeez we wish they'd get supper elsewhere instead of our pets.

 

[Fabidon]

Thank you for your understanding. Our 12-year old granddaughter, Alaina, is a critter person; we call her 'Ellie Mae' and 'The Chicken Whisperer'. She is the one who made true pets of our chickens and even gave them Falcon training! As you are all aware from your experience we learned they are like feathered puppies and follow us wherever we go, they come running toward us when we come out of the house and crouch to be petted and even hop up to sit in our laps or on the top of the lawn chairs when we sit outside.

My husband had to build barricades on our back porch to prevent them from coming into the house.....we are in Florida and often leave the doors open during nice weather.

We are really sad over the loss of Pixie yesterday especially because we thought we had a good system in place to keep them safe. We put them back into the protected yard around 4:00 PM each day and with that access to their coop, they would put themselves to bed when it got dark and we would tuck them in. With the recent cloudy weather it changed the lighting and we had a fox come out at 3:30 in the afternoon and of course Pixie was doing her thing in the front pasture area and was vulnerable. They will now remain in the protected yard and no longer have run of the acreage which they absolutely love to do. They even forage around the edge of our pond and visit with our two Pekin ducks. They love taking advantage of the duck pen being open to allow the ducks access to the pond and they help themselves to the ducks' food pan. They will no longer be able to enjoy raiding the ducks' food. And, yes, I worry about the safety of Quigly and RuPaul because they go back an forth from their pen to the pond throughout the day which puts them into the path of the raiding fox. We cannot understand why they have not been victimized because they certainly don't move as quickly as the chickens. We'll have to take another look at that too.

Regarding the B52 chicken, she was not the one we lost yesterday because there was another egg on the ground under the roosts this morning. This one was only cracked and not totally smashed so I was able to weigh it and discovered it was 77 grams; a super Jumbo egg. I will try to identify which girl has taken on this habit and try to isolate her and hopefully reset her laying clock.

I will keep you posted on any progress and again thank you for all your excellent information and suggestions.

 

[cmom]

I put golf balls in the nest boxes and the birds think they are eggs. I have found more than one golf ball in a next box once in awhile. I have a collector. I don't know how the golf ball gets moved from one nest box to another but they will arrange them with the other eggs in tha nest box and they seem to prefer certain nest boxes. I had a neighbors dog kill some of my birds before. Every critter that has made an attempt to get at my birds have been diggers so I put up an electric wire around the outside of my fence. I leave my pop doors open 24/7. Now if anything touches the wire they don't come back for more. I have not lost a bird since putting up the electrical wire.

 

[Fabidon]

Latest report: My husband is going to put up an electrified fence that will give them a safe area to forage in that will be a little larger than our backyard and hopefully allow our grass to regenerate this spring. He has to move a gate or two and run the fencing but he is motivated and once he has something scheduled you can cross it off as done!

We also removed the cardboard produce box that they were using for nesting and freshened up the built-in nesting boxes with hopes that will encourage them to use them instead.

When contemplating how to handle the bomber's eggs we were working on a design to suspend some house wrap (it is plastic wrap that is internally fortified with what I think are fibreglass strands so it is strong) so it would be under the roosting area. I happened to glance up and saw an umbrella I keep out in the kennel/barn/coop in case it starts to rain while I am working out there and need it to get back to the house. The light bulb went off and we put the opened umbrella under their roosts and fastened the handle with a large clamp to hold it in place.

This evening will be an experiment in chicken adaptation and tomorrow will tell whether they switch to using the built-in nesting boxes. Stayed tuned; I will report back tomorrow.

 

[Fabidon]

Update on hen laying from roost:
As reported earlier, I put an opened umbrella under the roosts and it served the purpose of saving the egg that was dropped from the roost. This continued for 5 days and then the B-52 hen stopped dropping her egg at night. My thoughts are that box we had on the ground had become the prime egg laying nest and was not able to meet the needs. Perhaps this chicken didn't get her time in the box and it threw her system out of sync???? Anyway, after having the wall nests as the only place to lay their eggs, they have been accepted by the flock and apparently even the bomber has decided to lay in a nest again.
The proof was when I got 8 eggs that were all RR eggs......so easy to tell the difference between them and the BR eggs which are lighter in color and smaller. I knew it was a RR that was dropping the egg so when I got all 8 RR eggs in the nests it was clear she had broken the habit and was back to normal.
I am leaving the umbrella in place just in case, but have not had a B52 egg in 4 days! Fingers are crossed this continues.

Thank you all for your advice and guidance.