Should we leave our pullets in their coop til done laying eggs, or open coop door to pen early AM?

NoelC

In the Brooder
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Howdy,

We got our first couple of eggs the other morning, in the coop's nest box as hoped, but after reading many stories here come to learn hens will lay eggs oftentimes during the later morning or even later hours. Our girls have such a nice place to forage we had been letting them out of the coop & pen first thing in the early morning and of course they love it! Well, now that eggs are happening, we are rethinking this. You can see from the picture the girls have a small coop--for 4 of them, and they are not super big and seem to like putting themselves to bed in the coop each sundown. We are wondering, should we open the coop door early, but keep them in their cage/pen until maybe noon or so, feeding them, and hoping if they haven't yet laid they will waltz back into the coop/nest box as needed? When we open the cage/pen they typically will wonder out of it and forage, but then we may lose track of their eggs. So, would you keep the cage closed until later in the day, then open it for forage, or just keep them in their coop until later in the day?

So far this design, the dog kennel pen, seems pretty cool since it's easy to hose it down and keep everything very clean. We poured a 9' slab to put the coop on. Unfortunately when we bought the coop we didn't no what to look for and ended up with a cute coop that has its nesting box access lower than its roosting bars, so the hens like to head into the nest box early on. This made for a poopy nest, so for this we now have a cardboard barrier we are using to keep them out of the nesting box between sundown when they put themselves up for the night and when we go to bed, around 10pm or so, at which point we pull out the cardboard. This has worked great as in no poop in the box, and as I say we have found 2 eggs so far in the nest box, but it's pretty high maintenance! Hopefully they will learn to NOT go into the nest box eventually and we will be able to dispense with the cardboard. I've even looked at making a motor-driven panel that moves up and down on a timer, at which point my daughter said, "don't you think maybe you should just make a different coop!"

 
I open the door in the morning. The girls go inside as they wont to lay eggs when the time comes. Some days they don't lay until after lunch. That would be a long time to be stuck inside. I keep the food inside and the water outside.

Chris
 
We just started getting eggs and we have gotten them as early as 9 am and as late as 5pm. I don't think keeping them locked up is the answer.
 

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