No eggs!?! 4 days new coop... New to me grown hens

[wsmith]

Your Doms should do well there.

 

[RedneckGurl]

I just got eight grown hens on Sunday from a friend who wanted to "freshen" up her laying stock and needed to do something with the older girls. I laughingly say I have begun running a bit of a hen old age home. I didn't really want to bother with chicks and I don't plan to sell eggs, so their being older and possibly having a lower laying rate doesn't bother me. They really aren't that old - not quite four years for the oldest ones. I picked them up Sunday evening, just about their bedtime so they were docile and easy to relocate. Monday I spent the day with them in the coop doing some final finishing on overhead cover, etc. and to watch them to make sure they were adjusting well. I got tired and hot and decided to take a sit down on the steps leading up into the coop. The next thing I knew, I had a chicken sitting beside me on the top step. I started petting her back and she starting this low, soft trilling sound that was very soothing. She and I just sat there for a few minutes and just as I was thinking she had fallen asleep, I heard a little plinking sound, looked down and she had laid an egg right there beside me! Wow! The next morning there was an egg on the floor of the coop, under the roost, and sadly it was broken. So far, they haven't even acknowledged the four nest boxes that I have set up inside the coop. To my knowledge, once they leave the coop in the morning, they don't go back in until night fall and then I have to "help" them find the way in. The ramp and pop door seem a bit confusing to them. My big question is this -- how long should it take them to figure out what the nest boxes are for and should I be worried that they will start to just lay eggs under the coop, which is where they spend a lot of their time since it's shady and cool under there??? I put four of my husband's golf balls in the boxes last night to try and show them what they are for so I guess I'll find out when I get home from work if they took the hint.