Sneaky little buggers

[McEgg]

Just now realized what everyone else already knows. If you see a slack in egg production, they started laying them somewhere else. I was thinking the slack in the daily quota was due to the cold. It's been pretty darn cold lately(below freezing for highs and a BAD windchill) , so i didn't think much about it.
Well, it got into the 60's today so i started cleaning up a bit in the yard and did the daily food and water check when I realize there are 2 eggs under the coop(between the chicken wire and the ground which is stuffed with straw to catch droppings). One of the girls decided to dig out a place under there and start to lay. Well, apparently that place, instead of my 3 nesting boxes , was deemed to be "the " place to lay. So, send my daughter in the coop to retrieve the 2 eggs. She gets them and hands them to me, and starts yelling that there is more. He hand me 2 more and then a 3rd.
Five eggs stacked up in the back and now I am not sure who is doing it or how to make them stop. We are still getting eggs in the Nesting boxes, but this is a bad place to lay. One of the amercunana(sp?) keeps laying in the door of the coop.

Can a hen refuse to let others use the nest? Especially if one or two of them are bossy? May have to redesign coop.

Thanks

 

[CovenantCreek]

How many nest boxes and how many hens? I have 4 nest boxes, though usually the two on top are blocked so they don't get used for roosting, and 4 hens. One of my girls decided to try laying in another location for awhile, too. She gave it up after she realized that I'd found her stash, now she's back to the box -- it took 3-4 days of taking eggs out of the new location before she decided to head back to the coop. Good luck finding the next location if they free-range.

 

[McEgg]

yea they free range. 6 hens 4 boxes. Well, I'll just keep on raiding the stash until it warms up again.

thanks for the info

 

[fivebigreds]

when you remove the eggs scatter the nest good so she will thing a preditor has discovered it . She will probably move elsewhere , hopefully the nest.