Rescue chickens

[Nancyjane]

We saw an add in the paper about many chickens having been sent to many Humane Societies throughout the state. Our county was out of them, but the county next door had a bunch!
We picked up 2 leghorns who are very skittish, but get along with my RIR who recently lost her sister.
The problem we are having is that even though we have built a ladder up to the lovely nests (with a marble egg included) these rescue chickens haven't figured out that that is where eggs are supposed to be layed! I find the eggs just laying (LOL) around the enclosed coop!
Any way to
teach them where to lay?
Nancy

 

[jossanne]

Try giving them a portable nest box on the ground. Maybe a cardboard box, or a milk crate. Put golf balls or wooden eggs in it to entice them to lay there. If you can get them started in there, then gradually start raising the nest box higher a bit at a time, until you get it up by the others. Then disappear it?

Maybe give them a wire cage with nesting material in the bottom, so it looks like where they've been living, and they'll go in there because it's familiar?

Those are the ideas I can come up with. Good luck to you, and good job taking the girls in!

 

[silkiechicken]

Good luck! They may take a bit of time to adjust to normal chicken behavior, they grew up and laid out their first year of their lives in cages likly, where they just laid an egg where they stood and it rolled away.