unusual laying behavior

[chairboy]

I am a beginner and while I have read about unusual laying behaviors my experience strikes me as very weird. I have a small coop about 5 X7. The inside is about 6' tall. Near the door and next to roosting bars I placed a homemade feeder that is about 4' high and about 12" square. The sides are luan which is a very thin wood. On top of that I placed a piece of plywood just slightly larger than the 12" square dimension just to keep dust, etc out of the feeder box. One of the hens has taken to knocking off the lid and apparently roosting on the 1/8" edge of the luan and laying an egg which drops into the feeder box. Fortunately, I try to keep the box at least half full of feed. So visualize an egg being laid while balancing on a 1/8" edge of luan at about 4' and dropping 2' into a box (without cracking no less).

Is this strange??

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Strange, but then again, chickens are strange critters. Why not just put a hinge on the lid to keep the hen from knocking the lid off?

 

[gryeyes]

Well, given that hens actually stand up slightly to lay an egg, perching somewhere to lay an egg isn't really ALL that strange.