Pullet just squats and lays wherever she is

I've heard people leave eggs in the nest box to encourage hens to lay in them. But I'm not sure what could be wrong about the appearance of the eggs...

 

Mine have done this previously but they were younger. Now I will NOT let them out of the coup til they are done laying cuz it's outside, under a bush, in the run. They also have the same whiteish powder to them. Not totally sure why they do it but they do.

Someone else may have a better answer.

 

I can't help but I have a part english blue orp who often lays off the perch. Her eggs can be soft shelled if I let the oyster shell run out. When they are hard, they are bumpy/rough and whitish. They never get a nice hard smooth shell. She does make the nest box when they are hard. I wouldny know if she laid outside the run because my dogs eat any eggs they find. She is just a year old. Im interested to see what people say.

 

To try to figure out who it is:

Take a tube of lipstick. DO NOT USE IT AGAIN. A mostly used one would be nice.

Rub lipstick around the vent of a hen. Wait till you see an egg with red on it--that hen laid that egg. Rub off the lipstick, apply to another hen. Repeat. And repeat. Until you find the hen that's doing it.

REMEMBER: DON'T USE THAT LIPSTICK FOR YOURSELF AGAIN.

 

Any hen that refuses to learn to lay in the box doesn't get roaming privileges until she does. It's that simple. No egg in box, no recess.

 

If you have 10 hens? give or take? and you're serious about solving this, then you might consider committing a morning to "charting" the hens. I take my coffee and a clipboard and head out to the coop early in the morning. Note, the boxes are empty, OK, we're good to go. One by one they head into the boxes. When they leave, I assign a description of the egg and the hen who laid it. After an hour, they've mostly all laid. I can even separate them into a divided pen, layers into one, not yet laid, into the other.

Narrows it down. Eventually, I have charted them all and know who does what and when.

Another method is lipstick butts. Different shades of lipstick on the bums of each hen. The eggs get streaked with different color at lay. A chart is then constructed. Different ways to chart your hens. Gotta do something.

 

Good news, most of them do learn to look for the nest box, but I agree it may be a good idea to confine them to the coop until they get it straight.

 

Quote:Why not?