I know this seems crazy but one of my hens appears to be laying (at leats her first two eggs) from the rooting pole at the top of the hen house and I am finding broken eggs on the hen house floor below -- I'm reasonably sure I know which one it is (I saw her up on the roost at like 11am this morning -- way later than usual) -- any ideas of what to do? Also -- I have one little hen who has claimed a bag of rocks in the corner of the garden as her nest -- how to I convince her to lay elsewhere? Thanks
Well I can't help you with the one laying from the roost.... but when one of our girls started laying she chose a corner of the coop. After a couple eggs there, I placed a big watering can in the corner, and lifted her into the nest box as couple times a day for a couple of days, to show her the fake egg that's in there (we have a wooden egg from the craft store in the nests) so she'd get the idea. The next day she was visibly distressed about the watering can being in her nest area, and madea big fuss. But she finally laid in the nest box and continued to do so even after I removed the watering can the next week. Good luck! P.S. We did have one hen lay on the roost, an adopted big fat Buff Orpington who has a really hard time getting down off the roost. I think it was just too much trouble for her to get down! Anyway she's stopped laying now (that was her last egg a few weeks ago..) and I don't know it it's because she's doing a really slow molt or because she's stressed about getting down from the roost. We're building her a ramp tomorrow, we'll see if that helps!
One of my hens did that once (lay from the roost). Don't know what brought it on or why it never happened since. My theory is she had the equivalent of a wet dream and laid an egg while she slept.