My girls are only 8 weeks old but I was wondering when do you put the fake egg in their nesting boxes to teach them where to lay? They are Plymouth Rocks. I have never seen anything grow so fast either! dawn
I would wait until around 5 months old, or whenever you see the first egg, myself. You can actually block off the nest boxes until then, so they don't learn to sleep in them.
I had fake eggs, but never used them, then at 16.5 weeks they started laying (red stars) and two were laying in the coop and not the nest and that is when I put them in. The one bird got the idea, but the other kept laying from the roost (so I would pad the ground under her, then one day I caught her and put her in the nest...she laid in the nest, but now she lays under the nest...which is better than from the perch for a 4' drop.
