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kie4 said:
It's the common consensus on BYC to put fake eggs in the nesting boxes to help chickens learn where to lay.
We have 2 chickens who have been laying for 1 week in the nesting boxes without fake eggs.
Yesterday a new layer came online, and laid outside of the nesting boxes in the coop.
To counter this I put a couple of fake eggs in each nesting box.

Now this morning I found 3 eggs in the corner of the run!

Should I remove the fake eggs from the nesting boxes? How does one deal with such a situation?
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We have deep bedding in the coop for the winter and our hens have been digging nests into the bedding. One day we got so few eggs compared to the other days. The next day same thing. I let the chickens out to free range and found that they had made a nest in the coop and all the extra eggs were accounted for in this separate nest.

Also, we have one who won't leave the nesting boxes much with the low temps. She just sits in there. At first I thought she might be a bit broody and sitting on an egg, but there are no eggs under her and she just doesn't want to move. She slept in one of the boxes two nights ago.
 
Werforpsu said:
We have deep bedding in the coop for the winter and our hens have been digging nests into the bedding. One day we got so few eggs compared to the other days. The next day same thing. I let the chickens out to free range and found that they had made a nest in the coop and all the extra eggs were accounted for in this separate nest.

Also, we have one who won't leave the nesting boxes much with the low temps. She just sits in there. At first I thought she might be a bit broody and sitting on an egg, but there are no eggs under her and she just doesn't want to move. She slept in one of the boxes two nights ago.
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Hi @Werforpsu , were you able to get your chickens to start laying in the nesting boxes again? Or will you wait until things warm up and hope they go back to laying in the right place again?
 
Good evening all:


Got my first CCL egg in a few months....I started to get some BCM eggs about a week ago....not really prolific but enough to keep me well fed...

I've found a couple of golf balls good to teach chooks where to lay, and to stop the 'egg eaters'....
 
@kie4 We waited to eat ours. Now we only have one laying out of 27. We take the shells and grind them down and give them back to the chickens or we use them for the garden.
 
kie4 said:
Hi @Werforpsu
, were you able to get your chickens to start laying in the nesting boxes again? Or will you wait until things warm up and hope they go back to laying in the right place again?
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They have been laying in the nesting boxes mostly. Yesterday I was 3/5 hens. Today, 4/5. Then hubby went in to refresh water and found another nest in the coop with 2 eggs in it. That makes me 9/10 over 2 days w/ laying.

Honestly, i think sometimes they have a "she's in my box and If I can't use that one, I'll make my own" opinion about it. I'm not that worried. They started laying in september so they are pretty consistent about the boxes.


Make sure your nesting boxes are cozy to entice them. Good bedding, no drafts....of course for us that means that one is sleeping there. I wonder if her pecking order means that she is on the end of the roost...maybe she is cold otherwise. I havent had dirty eggs yet so I am going to let her stay there for now.
 
I think the rogue laying might be fixed. We have a new layer and her first egg was in the middle of the coop, 2nd egg under the coop (when the other two proceeded to also lay there), and this morning in the nesting box next to the golf ball.

I left the egg in there for the day so that the others copy her and they all build up a habit.

Getting 3 eggs a day is enough to feed the family and break the shackles of "Big Egg". No longer will we buy eggs in the supermarket, the dream has been realized!
 
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I just updated my website with a complete list of all the breeds I might have to sell in 2017, if you want to kill some time over the holidays looking up pictures and such:
http://4chicky.myfreesites.net

Of course my friends here get priority, so if you like anything I have, let me know. My place is a regular stop on the "chicken train" run also, if you are too far west to make the trip just to get a few chicks.
 
dheltzel said:
I just updated my website with a complete list of all the breeds I might have to sell in 2017, if you want to kill some time over the holidays looking up pictures and such:
http://4chicky.myfreesites.net

Of course my friends here get priority, so if you like anything I have, let me know. My place is a regular stop on the "chicken train" run also, if you are too far west to make the trip just to get a few chicks.
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Do you ever sell peafowl eggs or peachicks?
 
Chaos18 said:
Do you ever sell peafowl eggs or peachicks?
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I hope to this year. The last 2 years, fertility and hatching have been bad, I only hatched 1 chick each year. This year's chick survived and is living with some Ameraucanas. I don't have space to keep more peafowl, so anything I hatch this year will be for sale. I'm also going to change how I incubate them in the hope of improving the hatch, and each year the males get prettier and supposedly that improves fertility (because the peahens are so vain about wanting only the prettiest of suitors).

Peas are by far the toughest eggs I have ever tried to hatch. I would caution you about trying to hatch your own. The eggs tend to be pricey ($10 and up) and with no guarantee they will hatch, that's an expensive experiment.
 

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