Where will my hens lay their eggs?

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Consider yourself lucky...BTW it will change if they have much room to Free range....Free ranging in a 50X50 lot is different than free ranging over several acres...
Just mentioning this as there is a lot of difference between "free ranging areas".

Yeah I feel lucky; my girls are pretty good. They free range over about 5 acres. I've looked, but so far haven't found any eggs other than the coop.

 

[Akrnaf2]

My chickens free roam, they stay in their coops til about noon and then they come out & run around and by 7 or 8 they go back into their coops all by themselves and we shut it. Will they lay their eggs in the yard since they free roam? We have a box that was made for them to lay their eggs in the coop I think, but I've always been worried about it. We have 10 chickens and the box is quite dark and it's kinda small but they all seem to fit in it. It's up high so there's a ladder for them to get in. It's where they sleep every night. There's only one opening in the middle and the rest is blocked off. I could send a pic of it if you want me to. They're 4 months old, and if I should make new little boxes for them to lay their eggs what should it be?

Put some more nest boxes and you should put in them some artificial eggs, even ping pong or golf balls will do the trick.

This is my Idea of nice box made from old tyre, scrap wood, and net leftovers.

 

[duluthralphie]

Put some more nest boxes and you should put in them some artificial eggs, even ping pong or golf balls will do the trick.
View attachment 1093990 View attachment 1093991View attachment 1093992
This is my Idea of nice box made from old tyre, scrap wood, and net leftovers.

Can you use and old Tire too??





ROFL,,Just giving you crap over the English spelling.

 

[Akrnaf2]

Can you use and old Tire too??





ROFL,,Just giving you crap over the English spelling.

Don't start that again! Have been there to many times!

Tier not Tyre

 

[duluthralphie]

Don't start that again! Have been there to many times!

Tier not Tyre

I know, that's why I started!!!

 

[Birdinhand]

I would add a box or two. I would keep them in till they lay. when I let mine roam free it's after they lay. when I was a kid "down on the farm" we let ours roam. there were two issues with that, over time they'd get eaten and they would get in the habit of laying eggs in hard to find places. i'll second the golf balls as a good starter. it does seem that chickens have some latitude on when they lay eggs. If I let mine out early, they will lay later and sometimes skip a day altogether so I've decided it's best for egg laying production to have them all lay before going out. That said I don't let mine out all that often, we have too many predators and I just know from hard experience that everything goes great till it doesn't, and chickens go missing. i'm still trying to find the perfect balance.

 

[kiyomi]

update: one of my chickens layed her first egg!! I'm adding more nesting boxes, because the one we have might be too small. I guess now they are at least almost 5 months old