Hey Jmngrose...my wife just called me....my hens just laid TWO eggs!! According to her, the two are waiting at the door every morning, and as soon as the coop doors open, they rush out to the feeder and water container. They then eat and drink to their hearts content. At about 9.00 they go BACK into the coop.
This is where it gets interesting. According to the wife, they "bicker" for a good 20 minutes. She peeped inside, and saw one on the nesting box and the other walking around and around the coop complaining. Eventually, the complainer walks into the nesting box and starts to even walk OVER the one that's sitting. She had to leave then to tend to some baking.
10 minutes later, she goes to check and there are the two eggs. She's not sure if they are laid by the same hen, as the two eggs are in the same side of the nesting box. But the two hens are BACK outside in the run.
I wonder if, instead of free-ranging your hens, you kept them locked up in the coop with food and water? Would that help? I think I found the answer to my problem. We hadn't been getting eggs, because maybe as soon as they came out of the coop and into the run (which is a tractor), we closed off the run and moved it to another location in the yard for them to scratch and forage. Ane because of that, they weren't laying.
It seemed, at least for my hens, that they needed to get out, and then get BACK in, to the coop to lay. What are your thoughts on that?
