Mystery food pellets in nest box

[bokbokchkntalk]

I have had a pair of silkie hens for about three years now and keep them in a chicken tractor most of the time. They get to free range on weekends and for a couple hours during the weekdays on nicer weather days in spring/summer/fall. They have a suspended gravity feeder filled with layer pellets and drink from a hamster bottle but also get to munch on a fresh patch of grass every couple days when I move the tractor. They have two nest boxes in their coop. I use pine shavings in the coop and straw in the boxes. Recently though we keep finding a surprise in the nest box... Quite a bit of whole (or undigested?) food! I haven't found any evidence of a coop intruder, and don't notice any other symptoms in our hens. No sign of sour crop. We haven't caught anyone in the act to tell what's really going on, but they seem to be laying, eating, and acting normally. Very weird, and I can't find a single mention of it anywhere online which prompted me to finally make an account here after years of lurking in the shadows

Any ideas?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Rodents are notorious for stashing food. Chipmunk are the worse. I constantly have clumps of corn and sunflowers coming up from them hiding stuff. I would suspect some type of rodent is using your chickens nest as a food stash.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Oh, and Welcome to BYC.

 

[bokbokchkntalk]

Thank you, from Shirley, Muffet, and I!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

They are adorable.