If you have multiple nest boxes, do they all lay in one box?

[theoldchick]

I have 16 nest boxes and 16 hens. I have yet to find all my eggs in one box. I may have three in one box. One in one box, and five in another. Each chicken has their favorite box for a few days or weeks then switches to another. They all have the same material and are the same size.

 

[Tressa27884]

Quote:
I have dummy eggs in three of my six nesting boxes. It matters not one whit, they all still prefer one nesting box. Except my little bantams - they prefer the box directly accross from the one the standards use....silly chickens.

Tressa

 

[ridgewood chickens]

I have 4 nest boxes for 7 hens, and wherever the first hen lays an egg, quite often any others that are laying that day will use the same box. It's not always the same box, they don't seem to have a favorite. To make it even stranger, these are young hens that just started laying a few weeks ago, and every once in a while one will lay an egg in the shavings under the next boxes - if the first one makes a nest and does this, the rest will follow and also skip using the next boxes!

 

[cmom]

Quote:
Nice coop...

You have special girls with 1 nest box for each girl. You have enough nest boxes for up to 80 girls.
I have 2 coops with 8 nest boxes in each coop, 1 coop with 6 nest boxes and 1 coop with no nest boxes (a grow out coop). My girls like to use the same nest boxes.

 

[Hinotori]

I have five nest boxes and they only use two of them. One upper and one lower. All boxes have a fake egg in them. Then I have the girls who like to hide their eggs. If one does it, several have to lay there too.

 

[LiLRedCV]

I have 40 chickens and 12 nest boxes and all are identical. They all use about 3 boxes to lay in and it varies which 3 of the 12 each day.

I haven't used a dummy egg yet, but I might have to give it a try to see!

 

[allpeepedout]

Yes.

 

[Pkeith1998]

I have 6 pullets and 3 nests all with dummy eggs and they all lay in the exact same nest box every day. 5-6 eggs a day in the same nest. It's crazy. They line up and wait their turn!!

 

[flnatv54]

Will golf balls work in place of dummy eggs?

 

[Sjisty]

My girls line up like airplanes on a runway. We have 9 boxes for about 20 or so hens (I'm afraid to count and see really how many I have). The current favorite spot is an old barrel planter that is on our front porch!

We pulled out the spacers between some of our boxes so they could share -


An then, of course, there's Chrissie. She's never laid in a proper nesting box. I haven't found her eggs since we used this bag of shavings, so who knows where she's laying!