Laying eggs at night while roosting

[bigredoscardog]

I have 3 girls, rhode island red, golden comet, and a barred rock. the red and golden are laying their eggs while they roost at night, leaving me every morning with a puddle and broken shells to clean up. I have been thinking of finding them a dinner table to roost on, but I have friends who think I need to look further for answers before I let them go. Is there a solution to this behavior? The red only does it every few days, but the golden lays every day like this. (They are best of friends, and take to each others bad habits.)
I really am fond of these girls, but I can't keep a hen that isn't giving me eggs.

 

[pixie74943]

Do you have a pretty comfy nest box? How old are they? Is there a golf ball/fake egg in the nest box to hint them to lay there?

If you have a pretty comfy nest box, maybe you could take the roost out for a while, they could sleep in the nest box and lay there, and then put the roost back in later?

 

[tstoikes]

I had a couple of rocks that would do that, Mostly they were younger birds. And in time it cleared up. I think the idea of trying the fake egg might work. Sometimes I think that they forget that they need to lay an egg because they are so busy with chicken things (scratching ect)

 

[bigredoscardog]

Maybe getting rid of the roost will work. There are 3 nests in the coop, one for each. I'll give that a go. Thanks, both of you for that suggestion!

 

[ibpboo]

Hope removing the roost for a bit helps you out!