My girls are laying in my orchard! Help!!

[auxranch]

Hey guys! My hens have layed in their nesting boxes no problem. Moves them to a bigger pasture/orchard area six months ago and they have been laying in the coop until about three weeks ago... Now they are stashing them under the blackberry bushes... Why is this and what can I do about it? Thanks!!!

 

[TwoCrows]

Hello there and welcome to BYC!

A few things could be going on....first, check your nest boxes. If they are dirty, dusty, old bedding, have bugs, predators have been seen in the coop during the day, etc...this will scare the birds outside to lay somewhere else. So make sure they are fluffed and clean at all times.

Next, if they are out free ranging and are out really far, they may not want to come back to lay in the coop. So keep fake eggs in your nest boxes and you might keep them confined in the coop and run for the first half of the day so they have to lay in the boxes and not out in the fields.

Good luck with your flock and welcome to ours!

 

[iwiw60]

Are your hens showing signs of going broody? Another thought...maybe something's getting into the coop and they don't feel safe in there to lay? ....Dunno, just thinkin'

 

[Kelsie2290]

Hello and Welcome To BYC! TwoCrows gave you some good suggestions, if your birds free range a lot it may be an ongoing problem, I usually wind up putting out "fake" hidden nests, old dog houses, 5 gal buckets etc and just collect out of those as usual ... it seems to keep the hens that have a real need to hide eggs happy and I still get the eggs.

 

[drumstick diva]

I like Kelsie's fake hidden nest idea - think that is a winner

 

[Mountain Peeps]

Welcome to BYC!! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

Yes, those fake nests are awesome! I've done it too.

 

[gander007]

Alright

BYC has a very useful learning center

Two Crows put it plainly

And put some dummy egg's in the nest at all times .......




My girls like to build nest outside when they are going broody ....


I could not find her for several weeks and then one morning she came out for food and water so I followed her back to her nest and found this but she was to young or her friend did not do his job properly and the egg's were non futile upon inspection but I did find her next nest a couple of weeks ago and 2 out of 3 of the egg's are futile and I have them in the incubator for testing purposes ............

















gander007