Manure on eggs - need help!

[Rawben]

We've been raising laying hens for over 17 years here at home and have never had this problem before. I'm out of ideas on how to fix this. Let me tell you first that we always raise purchased chicks in a small contained area and when their old enough we add them to our existing flock (depending on how many we have) or replace the flock. We'll this year we decided to raise the chicks in an unused large dog house. As the chickens got older they could free range in the pen (that's never housed any dogs - our dogs are spoiled!).

Anyhow, as these chickens got older they would ROOST in our TREE. When we noticed this, we quickly moved them to the hen house to replace our older hens.

Our coops is about 10 x 7 or 10 x 8 with two roosts that are about 3 feet long and I believe five or six nesting boxes for 11 hens and 1 rooster. The nesting boxes are heavy duty milk crates that we've used for all these 17 years. We have a small piece of wood in the front of the box that suppose to keep the straw from falling out. No matter how much I pack the staw into these boxes, it's gone in now time and with these hens I notice manure on these eggs. Now, keep in mind we gather eggs daily! It's not like the eggs are sitting for a couple days. Since our hens have free range of our fenced back pasture, we will find an occasional egg in the horse barn where none of these eggs have manure. I also noticed that one of our nesting boxes at the very end I believe may be used as a roost since the box is full of manure at times.

Any suggestions on how to correct this problem. In the years past we had 16 hens with the same exact setup and never had this problem. I could understand if this was our first rodeo and we needed to increase nesting boxes or modify the roosts but I'm at a loss right now on what to do.

 

[Mervin]

I have a hen that, on occasion, gets some manure stuck the fluff on her butt. She proceeds to smear it all over the eggs in the nest b/c they all use the same nest. When I notice it, her keister gets a trim.

 

[Rawben]

I'll recheck my hen's butts. When I did a quick check this morning I don't remember seeing any poop on them. Four out of six eggs this morning had manure and now that I think about it, all around the entire egg, not just on one side. Since dh gathered eggs this morning, I don't know if all the poop eggs were in one nesting box or not. I'll ask him. I'm thinking of putting golf balls in the one nesting box that their not using that accumulates with manure. Maybe whomever's filling it up will get the hint...unless it's the rooster.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

One of my hens will usually have poop on her feet that she picked up on her walk to the nest box. Then when she gets settled into the box, she will reposition the eggs of the previous hens with her feet (not her beak). She does a pretty good job of painting those eggs with poop.

I wanted to know how my eggs were getting so trashed so I watched my hens going about their morning routine in the hen house until I found the culprit. None of my other hens move their eggs with their feet. So you might have a hen like mine.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Try wood shavings in the box and see if that helps. The large chips. I find it superior and I am, by nature, a clean straw guy.

 

[the-bird-man]

could you make it so they cant roost on the nest box? my guess is one of the new girls is nesting on the box because for some reason she does not want to get on the normal roost. i would sneak in on them for a couple of nights and see where they are roosting. then once you find the girl that is on the nest box, move her to the roost and do it until she gets the idea. good luck

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

We have a small piece of wood in the front of the box that suppose to keep the straw from falling out. No matter how much I pack the staw into these boxes, it's gone in now time

Make it bigger​

 

[Rawben]

Ok, we've gone with the shavings and DE for the try method. Yesterday DH and I cleaning out the entire coop and move our two canisters that hold feed (scratch/cracked corn and laying mesh) to the outside temporarily. Closed two nesting boxes and have four opening with straw and havings (for 11 hens). Last night I went out with a flashlight to see who was doing what. We'll I found six hens on the top roost, none on the bottom roost, three hens in nesting boxes and the rooster and one hen on the floor in a corner (I believe he was roosting on the feed canister before). So, my conclusion is that we need to enlarge the roost or add another to prevent the nesting boxes from being used as roosts. I'll try and take photos this week so others can reply with suggestions. Really like where the roost is right now though it's below a window, so can't go up any higher on this particular wall and if we place a roost above the nesting boxes then we have to deal with a poop shelf which I don't want to do. The only thoughts right now would be to add another roost possibly above the window which would be about 5 feet off the ground, add another on the opposite side of the coop with the same window situation, or a LONGER roost that's present. What I like about the roost DH built years ago is because we can pick it up and hang it by a bungie cord for easy cleaning. Will keep you all posted. TTFN

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I would close all the nest boxes at night, just before they go to roost. You can open them up in the morning, so they can lay in them during the day. Add what ever new roost arrangement you need to, so they all have a place. Eventually they'll figure out where they all want to roost in the new arrangement. Once it's a habit, you can quit closing up the nest boxes at night.

 

[gjensen]

It is suggested to have 10" of roost for every hen, 16" from the wall and each other. For twelve birds that would be 120"(10'). Check for red mites. They are nocturnal so can go unnoticed until they are a problem. They come out to feed on the birds in the evenings. They cause the birds a good deal of discomfort, so they sometimes start looking for alternate roosts. I am not suggesting that either of these are the problem, but it is what came to mind when I read the post.