Nesting behavior at 12 weeks?

[erinszoo]

We store our bails of hay along the side of our chicken yard and two of our BR chickens who are only 12 weeks are making nests in the loose hay. We also have one who's made a nest in the house and sits in it for hours on end. Given they are too young to lay eggs, why are they nesting? Is this practice behavior? Will they turn into broody hens? Or are they getting ready to start laying so soon?

 

[chicklover16]

they're just checking them out, some of my 11 week old girls like to take naps in the nest boxes too

 

[CowgirlPenny]

Someone on here said that their 12wk old laid. I'm sure it's rare, but they can go early. My first was 16wks when she laid. First a BSL then a few days later a BR. So, your BR might be getting ready. Do you have nestboxes for them? Before mine figured out where to lay, she used to make a little nest in the corner of the coop and lay there. I had to put fake eggs in the nestboxes for her to lay in there. Worked like a charm.

 

[erinszoo]

We don't have nest boxes yet. That's why we were wondering if they were getting ready to lay. Guess we'll have to move on that this next week because this one chicken has been building nests for some time now and she's already 4 1/2 lbs. Not sure why she and two others grew so much faster than the others. We would think she's a he but they are all definitely hens. We weren't expecting eggs until about October but I guess we may get surprised and have some earlier. I'm not going to complain!

 

[2hot2chicken]

Not saying that it is not possible but I have 3 BR hens who have been nesting since they were bout 10 weeks old. At first we thought it was them taking a dust bath in the shavings. I kept them in deep shaving in the brooder (125 gal aquarium) and they were going out during the day but coming back into the brooder at night till our cop got done. But after digging around they would lay there and doze off. within a week or so we watched them start packing the shavings around themselves with their heads after they burrowed down in. about 2 weeks later we started letting them out to free range around the yard all day. I have a bail of hay next to my back door(rabbit food) and they started nesting in it the first day out. They especially do it if its cooler or windy and they want some warmth. All three huddled together on top of each other in 1 pile of hay is pretty commical.
Anyway that was almost 2 months now since they started. Now that they are in the coop full time they just go in and go strait for the roosts. There isn't even any sign of any1 having been in the nest boxes, other than my silkie I put there yesterday. Though mine have only been in coop all night for about 1 week or so to.

I keep crossing my fingers and hoping to! All three BR are pretty red in the face so I know they are close!

 

[cmom]

Sometimes as juveniles they will try to sleep in the nest boxes or where ever and when the sleep there they usually poop there and when they start laying you can get poopy eggs. My birds were sleeping in the nest boxes. I put milk crates in the nest boxes. It's no fun when they get used to sleeping in the nest boxes and then you reach in and get poopy eggs. This happened to me in the beginning. I thought it was cute. I finally got tired of cleaning the poopy eggs and the poop out of the nest boxes...

 

[sunnysongbird]

mine did that too when he was young! it was fresh bedding though...and he's a roo