Teaching girls to lay in nesting box?

[hmasto]

Help! My Dominique is my first girl to lay out of my 4 (other 3 are BO) she has been laying in the far back corner of the coop in the dirt, Not up in the nesting boxes. what should i do to promote her to lay in the boxes? I have put fake eggs in 2 of the boxes and sometimes find them kicked out.

Also when she lays she does make a peep but one of my BO's screams, Is this normal for them to do the egg laying call for another girl?

Thank you!

 

[azygous]

Sometimes just salting the nest boxes with fake eggs isn't enough to get new egg layers interested in using the boxes. When I have pullets just starting to lay, I keep watch over when they start showing signs of needing to lay. They usually will become very restless and will be very vocal, but not issuing the "egg song".

I will pick up the pullet who is showing this behavior and take her to a nest box and place her in it. Usually this makes something "click" in her little head, and she turns around in the nest a few times and settles in.

Edited to add: There's a five-year old Welsummer (she knows who she is) in my flock who is such a lazy-a$$ she often deposits her red egg anywhere she happens to be at the time. This morning, I was here posting this and didn't see her egg quick enough, and the rest decided to dismantle it and snack on it. So, no guarantee your pullets will grow up to be responsible about where they lay.

If you happen to be a bit behind the process and discover a pullet getting interested in settling into an inappropriate spot to lay her egg, pick her up and take her to a nest box. I've had to do this, and it usually works to get a pullet interested in laying in the nest box.

Yes, any hen is likely to sing the egg song even though she isn't going to be laying. It's enough for some hens to burst into the egg song just upon noticing another hen go into a nest to lay an egg.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

I would block off the corners and dark areas as well as what az^^^ said, of course I know nothing my girls are still freeloading

Gary