Question about dummy eggs?

[LostTesseract]

Hey folks. I just heard anecdotally that someone puts dummy eggs in their boxes to give their hens a break from laying, saying that they will not continue to lay if there are eggs left in the nests, broody or not.
Does anyone know if this is true? I can't find more information so I thought I would ask the experts: y'all.
Thanks for your time and I hope you all have a nice one.

 

[Weeg]

This is no true. Definitely false.
I leave Easter eggs in my nest boxes to show my hens where to lay, everyone continued to lay as normal.

 

[aart]

Does anyone know if this is true?

Not true.

 

[K0k0shka]

Definitely not true. Doesn't even make logical sense, biology aside. Why would it make them stop laying? If anything, it's the opposite. Hens want to lay where somebody else has already laid and there are eggs. Hence why hens tend to have a favorite nesting box that they all want to use, even if there are plenty of others sitting empty. Seeing eggs somewhere makes them want to lay there, because evolutionarily/historically the hens in a flock would hatch and raise their chicks together as a community. That's also why broodiness is "contagious". It's true for other species as well, including humans. Women who live together with other women end up having their periods sync up. Because historically the tribe would raise the children together, so it helps if there are multiple mothers lactating at the same time that can take turns nursing all the babies. Not the way we live nowadays, but the biology of it is still there. Communal species have evolved to help each other with their young.

 

[NatJ]

I just heard anecdotally that someone puts dummy eggs in their boxes to give their hens a break from laying, saying that they will not continue to lay if there are eggs left in the nests, broody or not.

I have heard of something similar for pigeons, but never for chickens.

(Pigeons want to lay 2 eggs and then sit on them. If you take the eggs, they may lay more eggs-- so fake eggs let them sit instead of continuing to lay. Apparently pigeons have health problems if they lay very many eggs in a row, unlike chickens where even the wild ones expect to lay a dozen or more before they consider going broody.)