I don't have a "box" for my hens to lay in. There's no top on the box. It's just a drawer. It's inside the coop though and it's fairly dark and off the ground. Is that good enough? Also, does it help to put fake wooden eggs in the nest? Thanks! I'm a newbie.
How many hens do you have? My boxes don't have tops either. and they work great. But depending on how many hens you have you may need more than one. I've never done fake eggs I've always just sacrificed some real ones to try and train the hens. And that works. But I'm sure fake ones work too.
It will work just fine. They like a little "privacy and security" when they lay. My silly free range hens find the most out of the way places to lay their eggs sometimes. Today we found a nest of about 2 dozen eggs on top of a haystack in the barn. No box or anything. They just made a nest in the hay. Right in front of that I discovered one of our barn cats had 3 newborn kittens, so evidently the chickens and the cats are tolerant of each other because they are being "productive" within a foot of each other! I have a commercially made nestbox that they use when they are in the coop. I have a wooden 10 hole nest box that I made. They use both of those, but every once in a while I find an egg in the corner of the coop or in the feed pan or wherever. They are going to lay those eggs somewhere, and if you have provided them with a place that has some "security" feeling to it, they will probably use it. I think the fake wooden eggs do help give the new ones an idea of where they need to start their business.
