I'm speechless! Has anyone had this happened???

[Dandelion007]

I don't know where to start.

I was out tending my chickens. I was coming by my Oriental Game pen and my white hen had something weird looking under her tail. She looked like she was messy but I didn't remember her having that going on. As I looked closer, there was a white mass in the middle. She was on the perch. AND LAYING AN EGG!!!!! It would if she laid it up there. I quickly opened the door and with the roo sitting beside her and pecking me I held my hand underneath her and caught the egg. Now that is fresh!

Yesterday, my two girls came to me and said she had laid an egg up there and the rest of the hens ate it after it hit the ground. I thought of course, she had laid the egg and I had some egg eaters since I just moved them all in together. This is a Yokohama pair.

I have my bator already going so I think I will let it set for a day then add it to the bator. Somehow, I think that just may be a very SPECIAL egg. If she laid everyday, (which she doesn't) that was a 1 in 17280th chance since there is 86,400 seconds in a day and this all occurred in about 5 seconds.

Has anyone every had this happened?

How can I convince my Yokohama hen to never do this again?

 

[mudhen]

A couple of times, I've found an egg under the roost area and often wondered if the hen layed it sometime in the night. Since the egg landed on soft shavings it didn't break, and I collected it with the others from the nests in the morning.
Maybe mine lay them in their sleep?

Have no idea how one would convince a hen to lay in a nest other than to suggest placing fake eggs in there?

 

[Toast n Jelly]

Put something under the roost to cushion the egg when it falls until you have her laying her eggs in a nest. Silly girl.

 

[rooster-red]

Try putting a fake egg in the nest box to give her the idea of the right place to lay.

 

[ozark hen]

I agree with 'rooster-red. Plus I have several inches of pine shavings on the coop floor and once in a while I will find an egg laying under the roosts in the morning. Who knows..maybe it is like a kid bed-wetting and just doesn't know what they are doing??

I keep golf balls in the nests as they use the nests, too. This is just a sometime thing.

 

[Dandelion007]

My chooks are about 10 months old. They haven't had a roost before they moved into their new condo Saturday night. They really like being up high. I have plywood on the very bottom of their pen to keep the dogs from looking in on them. Maybe it makes them feel blinded to predators. Or, they like being up high so well even coming down to lay an egg is too much of a chore???

 

[SussexInSeattle]

Has she ever laid in the nest box at all? When I first made my nest boxes, I picked up each bird and placed them inside for just a few seconds so that they could see that it was fine to go in there and just 'be' in there.

 

[WriterofWords]

Fuzzy Butt was laying in the tree she likes to sleep in during the Summer, but when I forced her into the coop when it got cold she started laying in a nest. I don't know what to suggest for your girl.

 

[joshplus10]

I wish my hens would lay when I put my hand out!

 

[CovenantCreek]

My hen that was laying from the roost is finally waking up in time to get to the nest box. For her, the eggs seem to come by 4:30 in the morning -- so now the light comes on a little before that. I was out there shortly after 5:00 this morning and the egg was already cool. However if your girl is laying after the sun comes up there probably isn't much you can do from that standpoint.