Missing Eggs

[Chick_in_Indiana]

My chickens have always laid their eggs in the coop. Even my guineas will lay where the hens do. Now for whatever reason I have went from 6 eggs a day to 2 or 3. The other day I had 3 green, the next day 5, then yesterday only 2 brown eggs. I have 3 barns that they have range of and have looked all over and cant find anything. I have tried leaving them in the coop until about 10 ot 11 but all but 1 lay in the evening. How can I get them to start laying where I want them to. I have 3 boxes for 7 hens, even though they dont like them. They usually lay in a nest they made on top of a straw bale. Any advice would be great.

 

[crooked stripe]

I hope there will be some very interesting answers coming. John

 

[Josie]

If they have a spot that they already like, your gonna have to confine them to the coop for weeks. My girls had a spot that they loved outside, but I made them a spot that I preferred. I locked them in, and they didn't lay as many eggs that week. The next few weeks, I let them out only after each of them had laid an egg. Now I can let them free-range, and they always lay in the nest.

 

[rooster-red]

Try putting some fake eggs or even golf balls in the nest boxes where you want them to lay.

 

[ruth]

My chickens also free range and love to find new places to lay eggs. Yesterday I found yet another hidden nest in our old barn in a fruit crate, nailed to wall behind the stairs. There were a dozen eggs and a really long rat snake in there. I waited for rat snake to leave to gather the eggs.

My technique has been to leave an egg or two in a nest that I find that is in an acceptable spot - i.e. in the feed troughs where I placed hay. If I leave an egg or two they will continue to lay in the nest the next day and I don't have to search for a new one. If I gather them all, they find another place. When I find nests in spots that I don't want them laying, like under bushes in the yard, I gather all eggs and try to destroy the nest as much as possible.

They do have nest boxes in their coop but I now have to keep the run gate closed because I have so many baby chicks/ducks in there that the big chickens that free range sometimes will jump the fence to get in/out and lay in nest boxes but they had already discovered the old barn so I just went with the flow instead of fighting it. I got tired of looking for nests every day so I repaired the old feed troughs and put hay in them and that's where they'll usually lay.

 

[LazyGirl]

I'm having the same problem. Mine are in a large fenced area, and each day about 6 out of 30 get out. I KNOW they are laying eggs somewhere, and I am not finding the nests. (I know a couple of their hiding spots). Do you think that if i coop them up for a few days they will lay in the coop? Will they revert? I need these eggs!