My chickens are playing mind games

[horsejody]

I have an 8 hole nest box. Of course, they only use 2 boxes out of the 8. I keep a fake egg and a golf boll in each of the 2 nests that they use. About a week ago, one of the fake eggs disappeared. I looked all over the coop for it. I dug in the straw of the nest boxes. No fake egg. It was gone. Last night when I went to the coop to count heads, I saw an egg in the nest box that wasn't there earlier. I went back to get it. I swear they were all laughing at me. It was the missing fake egg. They removed the egg and hid it, and a week later managed to get it back in the nest box.

 

[banter]

I have 12 beautiful clean, safe nest boxes with golf balls, and the hens are hiding eggs all over the barn!

 

[sara]

That is just wild. I wonder how they could have gotten it back in there

 

[horsejody]

I used to have a hen, named Eggatha, that could move an egg anywhere. She would roll them everywhere, and could even manage to lift them a couple of inches into or out of the nests. She was killed in the dog massacre we had, but I guess she must have taught somebody else the skill.

 

[ZooMummzy]

I don't know how they do it, but I have literally watched my chickens pick up an egg under their beak (next to their neck) and move it from box to box! I have one BSL who gathers all the eggs in the boxes into one and sits on them. It's the craziest thing I've ever watched!

 

[Chicken Woman]

IM glad you said that because I thought i saw one of mine do that but then again I thought I must be seeing things!!!

 

[gritsar]

Horsejody, I stopped mentioning on here that the very same thing was happening to me. The responses I got only reinforced my belief that I'm losing it in my old age.
The golf ball would be in the nest, then it would disappear and a couple of days later re-appear. The fact that I could hear the hens giggling only added to my suspicions.
Anyhow, once I stopped being comfounded by the trick and tearing the nest boxes apart looking for it, the hens stopped doing it. Guess I took all the fun out of it.

 

[basicliving]

That exact thing happened to me! I never told a sole except my husband, because it sounded absurd. But my next boxes are a foot and a half off the ground, and one of the fake eggs in one of the boxes went missing. I have 5 nest boxes and 5 fake eggs. I searched high and low and could not find it. A few days later - it was in a nest box with another! I still can not imagine what they did with it - I KNOW it wasn't in any of the nest boxes.

This thread makes me feel better - I'd still like to know how they did it, but I KNOW they did it!

Penny

 

[Red]

Wow, that's crazy!! Sneaky chickens!

 

[AngieChick]

I've had mine remove the fake eggs and bury them. Mine never put them back, though. One wooden egg seems to be gone forever. I have no idea where it went, I've meticulously cleaned out the coop twice since it disapeared. Sneaky little girls.