New laying boxes

[MarcelleW]

Hi there, I wonder if someone could please help me......we’ve built new laying boxes and closed the old laying boxes but because of that they’ve stopped laying and won’t go into the new laying boxes. What happens if they don’t feel comfortable in the new laying boxes and they hold back their egg production? Can they get egg bound then?

 

[FortCluck]

Closing the old boxes may have caused stress making them stop laying. They will eventually start laying again. You can put fake eggs in their new boxes or golf balls to show them this is the new place to lay.

Is there a particular reason you didn’t keep the old ones open in addition to the new ones?

 

[MarcelleW]

The old ones were getting wet on the inside with all the bad weather we’ve been having so we just needed to improve the laying boxes. The new ones are much nicer and weather proof. We have got fake eggs in the new ones. But yes I did think about them being stressed in not knowing where to go to lay their eggs even though they’ve walked around the new boxes....just won’t go in them. Hopefully they will eventually, but was just worried that if they couldn’t lay they’d be egg bound.

 

[FortCluck]

The old ones were getting wet on the inside with all the bad weather we’ve been having so we just needed to improve the laying boxes. The new ones are much nicer and weather proof. We have got fake eggs in the new ones. But yes I did think about them being stressed in not knowing where to go to lay their eggs even though they’ve walked around the new boxes....just won’t go in them. Hopefully they will eventually, but was just worried that if they couldn’t lay they’d be egg bound.

It took mine a few weeks to realize they should lay in their new nesting box. We had none that got egg bound from it.

They may try to lay elsewhere like in the run. Just keep an eye on them.