Nest Box Craze!!

[jrhy]

My girls are getting older and will soon be pullets. They are about 10wks now, I heard they will reach pullethood at 12wks. (If this is correct) I also read that hens will sometimes favor a nest box for laying. Though my girls are far from laying, they have all decided to sleep in the nest boxes and they all favor one box most. Don't know why that is. There are three boxes and six chicks. They all try to cram themselves into one box which is utterly ridiculous. They do fit at least four in a box and then two go sleep in another box together. My question is, is this normal?? why would they all try to cram into one box they have a whole henhouse to sleep in. Has anyone else experienced this?? Also is it not a good thing to allow them to sleep in the nest boxes when they are really only for laying eggs in. Will it be a problem later when they start to lay?

 

[gritsar]

First off, a pullet is any female chicken under the age of one. A cockerel is any male chicken under the age of one. Normal time for them to start laying depends on the breed - some breeds will start as early as 16 weeks or so and some of the slow maturing breeds can take up to 9 months, like one of my brahmas.

You do not want them to get in the habit of sleeping in the nestbox. Sleeping in the nestbox leads to poppy eggs when they do start to lay. My advice to you is to block off the nestboxes for now. Re-open them and add dummy eggs when your birds get closer to laying age. Roosts are for sleeping, nestboxes are for egglaying and nothing else. Having said that, when they do start to lay you will notice a tendency for all the pullets to want the same nestbox. It doesn't matter if they have 20 boxes to choose from, the first one to lay each day will pick a box and suddenly that becomes the box to lay in that day. It's just one of their multitude of quirks.