I have 4 hens 7 months old. This last Sunday I caught 2 of them laying what I think was their first eggs in the leaves under some spruce trees. Monday they were confined to their coop and run for obvious reasons. I have wall mounted nesting boxes where I put one of the famous eggs and I also put a box on the floor, both with leaves in them. They refused to lay anything on Monday. Today one of them made a mess of the nesting areas and laid an egg instead on the board under the roosts where I have shavings piled. The other three did nothing. Is this normal? How long does this foolishness last?
It's not foolishness to chickens. They haven't read the egg rule book. When pullets first begin to lay, they're not all that great at it. They're giddy, and flushed with hormones, still teen-agers, running around enjoying their world, and WHAM! this odd thing happens to them. It takes a while for their innards to get all the moving parts in sync, and for them to mature a bit so they know what to do when the egg is ready to emerge, and they are creatures of habit - at this early stage, before any real habit has been developed yet. So it's all discombobulated.
