My late layer is driving me nuts. She just started laying last week. All my hens lay in the nest boxes without problems. This hen will sit on the nest box for hours and then get up and leave to lay her egg! Coop confined just means on the the floor. Run confine just means in the run. Coop confine means it is likely broken, so far no egg eating, but that is my worry. She has been laying for a week. Should give her more time or is her time up??
I have nine hens, all lay in the boxes except 1. She lays her eggs on the coop floor, same place all the time. I just live with it.
I have one like that, too. I tried putting a nest where she usually lays her egg and she squished herself behind it just to avoid laying in it. LOL I think it is kinda sweet.
Same here! I have an easter-egger and she never fails to lay anywhere but the nest! Inside of an old cactus, on my back porch, behind the shed...it's like a literal easter egg hunt trying to find the darn blue eggs that she lays about the yard. She almost went broody because I didn't find her current nest for a week, and she'd laid seven eggs in a hollow by my outside shower. It's a little frustrating, but it's one of those things you live with!
My new Australorp eschewed the nesting boxes for a week - laying on the floor under them. Yesterday, finally, she decided the box was okay. So your late layer may yet figure it out.
There's hope.... We had two floor layers last season. In Fall, I moved them into smaller breeding pens - 8' X 5' spaces designed for 6-8 hens + a roo, with 2 nest boxes. One of them them then started laying in a nest box. The other one went broody. When she started laying again, she laid 3 or 4 on the floor. Then all the sudden she started using a nest box. We haven't had a floor egg from either of them in months now.
