Oh good grief!! Eggs in the bushes now!

[Christie Rhae]

Because of feather picking/boredom I now let my chickens roam my yard as often as possible. Yesterday I collected an uncommonly low number of eggs from the nestboxes. Then noticed 4 more eggs hidden in the bushes by my house. Great!! Now I gotta do a Easter egg hunt everyday to collect eggs. *Exasperated sigh*

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Do you have fake eggs in the nestboxes?

 

[BarefootMom]

Quote:
that doesn't really work with free range chickens. I don't even know why I have nest boxes! lol

I have a crate in the rabbitry I keep alfafa in--I always find eggs there, and in the garage on the bottom shelf my hubby has a bucketful of rags... oh and once in awhile they will lay in the seat of the lawn mower. It is an egg hunt every day for us

We get 2-3 eggs in the nest boxes and about 12 in other random places. lol.

 

[Ellie]

I dunno, I have 25 free ranging chickens but I do have nest boxes in which they lay their eggs. It is rare that they don't lay in them. I may be missing something from your post.

 

[linben]

Mine did this for a while and then I kept them locked up for a couple of days so they had to go in the nesting box. They caught on and now they always lay in the box.

 

[ngamtnman]

I had this same problem earlier this year. They found a brush pile and started laying eggs in it. So I kept them locked up for about a week and they all lay in the boxes now except for one red sex-link from time to time. I think she just gets too far away from the coop and just drops it where ever shes at. The rest will go back to the coop, even if they have been out for a few hours.

 

[Fritatta]

I have an EE that wants to lay outside - and I regret the fact that I found her nest and mixed it up. I should have just let it an collected her egg there. Cause now she's found another place that I can't find!

 

[Jferlisi]

Quote:
lol i have that problem. Still haven't found the hiding spot. If i let them out to early i usually get about 5-7 eggs but if they are locked in till 2-3 i get about 9-10 eggs. We are on 5 acres with pine trees on 2 sides and chaparral all over the place. I dont go bush diving.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Happened again today, 11 eggs in the nest boxes and 4 in the bushes. Lol. I did think of making that spot un cozy for nesting but maybe I will leave it. The spot is right next to the house and I know where to find them.
I have 16 chickens and 8 nest boxes. They have been locked up using the nest boxes their whole egg laying career. Only 2 weeks since they started "ranging" and already the are getting all independent. Lol

 

[gryeyes]

All of my chickens range freely, but the pullets and hens still come back to ONE of the coops to lay their eggs. They've been switching coops of late. A favorite spot was taken over by TWO broody hens, so the other ladies decided to try this or that other coop.

I did find a nest used by a lot of the ladies over a period of time. Sneaky things! They were laying between a wire fence and a tilted pile of trash plywood. There was a nice hollow where they were hiding their hoard. After I removed all the eggs, I've never seen another in that spot.