Duckfarmer1
Crowing
I put oval shaped rocks in from our landscaping to see how it would go..been pretty good..except they burry them in the nesting materials, and I forget to look for them. Plus, my boxes aren’t like that at all. They open from the outside with a VERY heavy lid made from a truck tailgate....he cut it into two pieces, and detailed the edges to look aged...my hubby rebuilds cars for fun.... ugh, its very dark it there, so privacy is not an issue...and he built each side up high for more privacy, with a walkway in the front....they like it in there...they set a long time....but..now we just bought more pullets...we will now have 35 hens...we have 8 nest boxes...they use two nest boxes. I said we need to build more with that many girls, but my hubby says no because they never use the other onesMy flock used to be a bunch of egg eaters, one of the hens just couldn't put a shell on for the life of her. So of course the flock learned that brunch was being served everytime this hen went in to lay.
I did a few things to remedy this bad habit. First, keep fake eggs in the nest boxes at all times. At first the egg eaters will rush in to eat them and find that most eggs are impenetrable. After playing with them, the birds become discouraged.
Next, curtains. Hang curtains over the front of the boxes, leaving just a slit in the middle for the hen to slip in. This does a few things...it stops hens on the outside from cruising for eggs, it keeps the inside of the box dark so the hen laying them doesn't start eating her own egg and the darken box creates a peaceful relaxing place for the hens.
Collect eggs VERY often during the beginnings of this process. You only want to leave those fake eggs around at first so the birds learn to give up on this bad habit.
I don't remember the exact time frame it took to stop the egg eating, but a couple weeks later, eggs were not being dined on ever again, even THOUGH the original hen still laid only a yolk. View attachment 1999936 View attachment 1999941