Pullet moving egg between nest boxes

[legojenn]

Hi,

When I built my coop, it was raised three feet off the ground. The external laying box is 2 feet wide by 1 foot deep and 1 foot tall at the back with a roof sloping upwards at 15 degrees. There is a divider to make two boxes and they are at floor level to make extracting the eggs easier for me and to keep the boxes below the perch.

In typical bird fashion, they favour one side over the other. It’s silly. Sometimes they’ll double up in the box and the other two will queue up waiting for their turn making a sort of ‘come on’ sound. I suspect that that the one that they favour is the one with a view outside. That to me seems to run counter to how I thought that chickens think. I thought that they’d prefer privacy.

Anyhow, I have a 2x2 to keep the laying box material in the laying box.

I thought that I would be clever and encourage the birds to lay in the unused box by leaving one egg from one side and putting it in the other.

This morning, when I retrieved the eggs, one of the four pullets moved the egg over to the favoured side without cracking it.

While my neighbour loves coming over around 6:30 to let my birds into the run while she has a tea, I can’t imagine her moving the egg. Is it possible for a bird to move eggs between nesting boxes even if it involves dropping and lifting an egg two inches?

Confused and outsmarted....

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Oh yes it is....it is part of the hen instincts.
I have one hen who consistently hatches 10 out of 9 set eggs, or 9 out of 8.

She is a very sneaky broody who tucks an egg deep in her wings that I don't feel on body check. I've even carried her to a preferred brooding location, carefully set the eggs, mark dates, checked her wings, then have the 1 more hatchling. She is goooood. (Yes they can outsmart you).

So they can tuck them up in their wings and walk with them, then put them gently down in the nest.

Or they simply roll them with their beak.

Totally happens all the time.

Keep watching. Maybe one of your girls is going broody. You'll know her by her refusal to vacate the nest. Hogging all the eggs. Sitting flat like a pancake and fluffy with an evil glare when anyone comes around.

But it is natural hen behavior.

LofMc

 

[legojenn]

They’re 21 week old sex links. I would have expected that broodiness would have been bred out of them because they’re bred for production. Do pullets go broody or do they need to live a bit and get some adolescent yayas out?

I am getting more eggs than I can consume, so I’m happy to let one be a mother. However, if one is going broody, I need to be careful. I cannot have roosters or cockerels and I have a limit of five birds. I would have to get fertilised eggs for her and I could not keep most of the hatch.

Moving excess heritage breed pullets should be easy, Cockerels not so much. I don’t want to bring cockerels into the world to cull.

Let’s hope that they’ve got rules in their head and they’re just messing with me by following them.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

It is not likely your hen will go full on broody as she is a sex link...and yes, production selection has generally removed broodiness, but not all hen behaviors.

Likely you just have a sneaky little egg mover, left over from brooding instincts. BUT some on this forum have had RSL's go broody. I personally never had RSL go broody, but amazingly several of my Black Sex Links have. But neither Sex Link type is known for broodiness. (For that, you look at the Silkie and Cochin or some of the larger breed types like my Marans which have been incredible brooders).

As to your question, I have had pullets go broody about 1 week after they came into lay, so teen mothers are very common in the avian world.

And no, if you don't want to have to re-home or cull cockerels, then don't let a hen sit on fertile eggs. You get 50/50 pretty much of the time....although some hatches I get nearly all girls and others nearly all boys.

But you're not going to have that problem. You've just a got an OCD hen that likes all of her eggs in one basket. (Sorry...couldn't resist).

LofMc