Laying egg off of roosting pole!!!!

[kdavis228]

I have 28 six month old australorps and red stars, I'm getting about 6 eggs a day, but sometime during the day I have a hen, not sure which one, that lays an egg off of the roosting pole. She isn't doing it at night because I check every morning, its always during the day. Its been happening the last 4 or 5 days, what in the world can I do, cause when it hits pooping board it breaks and they eat it!!!! HELP PLEASE!!!!!

 

[a123andpoof]

Yikes thats not good. Maybe put some golf balls in a nesting box or wood eggs and put her on top of them? Maybe she'll get the idea. Or take to roost out until she figures out a better place to lay. And be sure to collect eggs a few times a day to be sure they are not eating other eggs or youll have a very bad habit on your hands.

 

[Chickens? WOW]

I had the same problem, I still get one laid off the roost every other day or so, but you can make a deer netting basket under the area she roosts, and they will fall into the bag, you will get poop in there too. You also want to make sure to get a nice dark place for them to lay, cat carriers are great for that, I painted easter eggs egg color with on of those little vials of paint you can get at HomeDepot. Good luck, just try different things, something will work out. If they fall and crack, build up a high mound of bedding under the area.

 

[new world]

Hi Chickens? WOW. I have just been through the same thing with one of my girls but she laid hers either during the night or very early in the morning and luckily my hens didn't eat the egg BUT IT DID BREAK

. I had three eggs like that. I have put some fake eggs back in the nesting box (I had them in there before until they started laying then took them out but have now put them back).

My other solution was to make a soft landing for the eggs to fall on so I put a plastic tub about 40cm high to make the fall not so far from the roost and then the plastic poop tray on it and then put shredded newspaper on top of that so the eggs were just falling onto the newspaper and they stayed in one piece. Luckily she has started laying back in the nest again but I don't plan to remove the soft landing area just yet. Hope that helps.

 

[chickenbythesea]

i've had the same problem with them laying off the roost. I don't have any obstructions for the eggs to hit so I just made sure to pile the bedding up thicker under the roosts to help them have a soft landing. I have golf balls in the nest boxes but so far that hasn't made a difference. hopefully yours will get the hang of it soon

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I had one do that for about 6 months. Drove me up a wall. I assumed it was because the nights were long and she couldn't "hold" it. I was also thinking it was maybe due to the fact that it wasn't all dark at night or early morning (lights on in the house can be seen through the coop windows) which was messing up her internal clock. I never did figure it out but it did stop.