I have 8 different "coop" buildings, 8 laying hens and a few pullets just starting to lay. The younger girls have been test laying in different coops! One of the coops houses 7 young birds, 5 of which are pullets and they're not yet laying. Yet, every day I find an egg in that coop nest box. Two eggs yesterday.
I have seen pullets I know are laying go visiting into the various coops throughout the day. (I've been on vacation for the past couple of weeks.) I just think it's funny that they're not necessarily laying in the coop in which they sleep at night.
The A-Frame coop has always been the nest coop, but nobody sleeps in it. (Well, sometimes the ducks tuck into the bottom, penned section at night...) Buffy brooded eggs and hatched my first GrandChick in that coop. Shirley brooded eggs and hatched chicks in the large kitty litter nest box on the floor of the "main" coop. Today was the first day somebody laid an egg in there since I started taking "new" eggs out from under Shirley, on September 18th. Her chicks hatched Oct. 4th.
The only "ground" layer I've got is Thelma the Cayuga duck. All the chickens lay in one or another coop, always in a nest box except for ONE pullet who lays in the corner of the coop in which she sleeps at night. No eggs have shown up in that coop's nest boxes, despite the golf balls hinting at their purpose. But two mature hens and one pullet who do NOT sleep there have been making daily trips up the ladder into that coop. I think they're trying to decided if it's a better place than the nest box they're already using....
It's an Easter egg hunt without searching all over the property.
