You know your situation a lot better than I do obviously. If you say snake I’ll believe you.
My situation is obviously different than yours. When I find a hen is not laying in the coop, I lock all of them in the coop and run for a week or so to retrain her where to lay. It helps to find and remove the eggs from the outside nest too. That doesn’t always work the first time but eventually it does.
I’m around most days, so if I find one making a nest on the coop floor, I catch her on the nest and lock her in a nest until she lays that egg. This usually takes about a half hour and I only have to do it once, but I have had some take a lot longer and I had to do it twice before she caught on.
I’ve noticed that occasionally when a hen stops laying in the nest and wants to lay somewhere else, she just might be thinking of eventually going broody. It doesn’t happen each and every time, but a couple of times I’ve noticed a hen going broody even after I retrained them to lay in the nests, maybe a month or more later. That’s without her accumulating eggs.
I just keep one golf ball in the nests all the time and collect the real eggs every day, never leaving them in the coop overnight. I’ve had snakes visit overnight and swallow golf balls, then not be able to get back out of the hole they came in.
I don’t know how much it triggers a hen to go broody for her to accumulate eggs. What you might try is to collect the eggs you find outside and replace it with a golf ball or other fake egg, slowly accumulating them. I’ve tried that twice, just accumulating golf balls in a nest in the coop. It did not work either time. You could try that on an outside nest. Maybe a hen that has moved to lay outside has a tendency to go broody anyway and this will be enough to kick her over the edge?
The when a hen goes broody, move her at night to a place where you can lock her in there, with just a nest and room for food, water, and to go poop away from the nest. Move the fake eggs with her and wait to see if she accepts the move before you give her real eggs. Make it snake proof and leave her locked in so she can’t go back to her old nest. I find it helps to make the nest fairly dark so she thinks it’s well hidden. I’ve done this a couple of times and leave them locked in the nest where it is pretty dark until late afternoon of the day I moved them. That seems to help them accept the new nest. A broody is used to setting on a nest practically all day without pooping anyway, so as long as the nest is not hot enough to cook her, this is not really cruel. Don’t put it in the sun and give her some ventilation.
My situation is obviously different than yours. When I find a hen is not laying in the coop, I lock all of them in the coop and run for a week or so to retrain her where to lay. It helps to find and remove the eggs from the outside nest too. That doesn’t always work the first time but eventually it does.
I’m around most days, so if I find one making a nest on the coop floor, I catch her on the nest and lock her in a nest until she lays that egg. This usually takes about a half hour and I only have to do it once, but I have had some take a lot longer and I had to do it twice before she caught on.
I’ve noticed that occasionally when a hen stops laying in the nest and wants to lay somewhere else, she just might be thinking of eventually going broody. It doesn’t happen each and every time, but a couple of times I’ve noticed a hen going broody even after I retrained them to lay in the nests, maybe a month or more later. That’s without her accumulating eggs.
I just keep one golf ball in the nests all the time and collect the real eggs every day, never leaving them in the coop overnight. I’ve had snakes visit overnight and swallow golf balls, then not be able to get back out of the hole they came in.
I don’t know how much it triggers a hen to go broody for her to accumulate eggs. What you might try is to collect the eggs you find outside and replace it with a golf ball or other fake egg, slowly accumulating them. I’ve tried that twice, just accumulating golf balls in a nest in the coop. It did not work either time. You could try that on an outside nest. Maybe a hen that has moved to lay outside has a tendency to go broody anyway and this will be enough to kick her over the edge?
The when a hen goes broody, move her at night to a place where you can lock her in there, with just a nest and room for food, water, and to go poop away from the nest. Move the fake eggs with her and wait to see if she accepts the move before you give her real eggs. Make it snake proof and leave her locked in so she can’t go back to her old nest. I find it helps to make the nest fairly dark so she thinks it’s well hidden. I’ve done this a couple of times and leave them locked in the nest where it is pretty dark until late afternoon of the day I moved them. That seems to help them accept the new nest. A broody is used to setting on a nest practically all day without pooping anyway, so as long as the nest is not hot enough to cook her, this is not really cruel. Don’t put it in the sun and give her some ventilation.
