Nesting box question

[junebuggena]

Maybe your girls just don't like to be completely enclosed when laying.

 

[yellowchicks]

Here is a picture of the inside of my coop. It's 10x10 and the roosting bars are about 4.5 to 5 feet at the highest point



This is how I have been finding most of the eggs. With a few stragglers here and there...

What happen with your girls could be that they can see the eggs on the corner of the coop floor, but can't readily see (or look for) the golf balls inside the nest boxes that are hung on the wall, so they just all lay on the floor like everyone else.

Try lower the nest boxes to the ground, keep moving their eggs into the nest boxes, so the girls can see the eggs at their eye level. Once they lay in the nest boxes consistently, then raise the nest boxes back to the height you want. They will know to look for the nest boxes to do their deeds.

Just for fun, you can experiment with lowering a few nest boxes and keep the rest in tact, and see which nest boxes will become their favorite.

 

[DarkhorseFarmer]

Put a nesting box with shavings in it right where they lay those eggs. Try a Tidy Cat bucket.

Could I do that for awhile to get them used to it and then take it away leaving them with only the nesting boxes you see in the picture?

 

[DarkhorseFarmer]

What happen with your girls could be that they can see the eggs on the corner of the coop floor, but can't readily see (or look for) the golf balls inside the nest boxes that are hung on the wall, so they just all lay on the floor like everyone else.

Try lower the nest boxes to the ground, keep moving their eggs into the nest boxes, so the girls can see the eggs at their eye level. Once they lay in the nest boxes consistently, then raise the nest boxes back to the height you want. They will know to look for the nest boxes to do their deeds.

Just for fun, you can experiment with lowering a few nest boxes and keep the rest in tact, and see which nest boxes will become their favorite.

Good idea. That may just be the case.. When they lay eggs, i usually collect them every day in the evening. If I go out there in the evening and move the egg into the nest, how long would it last before i should throw it out? I could mark it so that I know which eggs are fresh the next day as well if need be...

 

[ConPollos]

Could I do that for awhile to get them used to it and then take it away leaving them with only the nesting boxes you see in the picture?

Maybe, especially if you leave that one Tidy Cat bucket down there, but add a few more a little higher up. I saw a cute display on Google images of Tidy Cat buckets stacked on top of each other three or four layers high.

I don't see why the hens can't choose where to lay, they've got a tough job pushing out the eggs.

I had the opppsite problem: I put nesting boxes on the floor and on a shelf a little bit above the floor, but mine INSIST
on making me move the Tidy Cats to a shelf that's 3 feet high...although it is still lower than their roost.