I need help. I am new to this chicken thing. I have 5 girls and one has been laying steady as she goes. Yesterday was the first day I had two! The problem I am having though is not laying in the box, but they dump everything out of the box so it is straight linoleum. Both eggs were cracked yesterday= I have pine shavings in the coop and I have straw in the nesting box. Any ideas? Yesterday I decided to mix the straw in with the pine shavings in the coop and I put straight pine in the box. I don't know what else to try. Silly girls. The eggs were both right by the golf ball.....
I had a similar problem until I purchased some of the natural fiber nest pads from eggcartons.com when I was trying to boost the dollar amount of my order. (I wanted pink egg cartons and that was the place to get them.) Anyhow, I love those things and have continued to use them ever since.
Some of them just don't want anything in the nest with them -- golf balls, other eggs, straw, you name it. Just put in some sort of padding that they can't remove, like felt, or sovia's suggestion of the next pads, to cushion the eggs. Since you have lino in there, you might even want to take that up and put a nice cushy pad under it, then replace it -- the give should be enough, even if the lino is the top surface. I have a couple who scratch all the litter out of my nests as well; my boxes have kind of a low clearance, though, so they can't really stand tall and drop the eggs from a height. That and I keep them well stocked with oyster; we've got seriously hard shells here.
Some people have suggested old carpet or carpet samples. You could also try those rubber mats that people who stand all day use.
