About 3 weeks ago, I decided to clean out the coop and prepare it for winter. I put in more shavings on the floor than I used during the spring and summer as we decided to use DLM over the winter. Ever since then my chickens will not lay eggs in the nest box. They lay in the middle of the floor, right next to the people door, next to the pop door, in the run, under the nest box in a corner, etc. they just dig out a nest in the chips, hunker down and lay wherever. We have tried putting eggs in the boxes for a couple of days to entice them, but nothing seems to work. Also, I suspected that someone had a hidden nest out when they free range, as we were not getting many eggs. We confined them to the coop/run for a few days, to see if that would make any difference, but it doesn't seem to as we still had very few eggs. Everyone's comb/face are looking red and they all are squatting and finally done with their molts so . . . Any additional suggestions for getting them to use the boxes again?
Mine do that too. They think they are hiding them from their predators..... Namely YOU. They do make nice round perfect nests don't they???
Mine too...sigh... I have four perfect nest boxes in the coop with golf balls in each one...they trample through them, pull out the hay, poo on everything, then lay eggs on the coop floor, or outside under the coop. I had one smart little Speckled Sussex who figured out how to get out of the coop two days in a row, and I found a lovely little nest in my hay shed with two eggs in it. I'm hoping it's just because they're beginner layers and they're going to figure it out eventually.
