what to do when they only want ONE nest??!!

[chkinut]

hi guys! i only have 6 hens, 3 of which are laying eggs. but i am getting 6 more chicks in the mail in a couple weeks. it will be awhile before all 12 are ALL laying. one of my girls layed her 1st egg yesterday (exciting! and i just ate it for lunch....egg, cheese, ham sandwich....and the 1st egg's yolk was SUPER orange compared to my other girl....anyone know why?). anyway, she decided to lay her egg in the favorite nest box shared by the other 2 girls. i have 3 other nest boxes available (a total of 4). one fake egg is in each nest box. so i'm afraid they will ALL want to lay in the SAME box. what do i do if that happens? is there anything i CAN do? or do the girls just have to work it out for themselves???

 

[Happy Chooks]

There's always a favorite nest. I've often seen 2 hens crammed into one nest box.

The yolks are orange because of the beta carotene in them. Access to foods high in beta carotene (spinach, chard, clover, cantaloupe, etc) make the yolks more orange. She just may be a better forager than your other girl.

 

[Katydid2011]

My girls all prefer the same nest too and every now and then I'll see an impatient hen crawl on top of another who's laying an egg in it. In the end, all of my nests get used. The girls lowest in the pecking order get the less desirable nests.

 

[aggie9296]

What can you do? Nothing. They will sit on each other to be in the same box. They don't seem to mind the crowding. If you could take out the partition to the favored box, at least it would be bigger. They would probably still sit on each other anyway.

 

[featherz]

Roll with it!!

 

[chkinut]

lol! it's all so funny!! thanks for all the replies....just goes to show you how funny they can be. it's also funny/sad that the girls on the low end of the pecking order get the nests nobody wants....chickens are definately not boring huh?

 

[Moonkit]

people recommend 4-5 hens per nestbox.. this is the reason