Will Chickens lay eggs on a hard surface?

[monteburns]

I'm thinking of modifying my nesting boxes to make them so the egg rolls away. My thought is that if I have straw or other material for the chickens to nest in, then that material will slide down to where the eggs will drop and eventually clog it. Obviously if it's just a hard surface then the egg will roll no problem. The chickens have all been laying in the same box now for over eight months and sometimes they pull all the soft material out anyway.

 

[Teach97]

when a chicken gets ready to lay it is coming out doesn't really seem to matter to mine...find eggs in dirt, hay, chips, boards, water (mainlyduck eggs)...

 

[blefky]

Quote:
Funny, mine actually wait in line for a preferred nest box! And when I locked them out of the coop to do the major spring clean in there, I put a free standing nest box in the run for the morning in case someone couldn't wait. Well, they waited, and when I opened the pop door back up there was a mad rush to the nest boxes! If they were a little bigger I might have been trampled!

As far as the hard surface, I know that some people who have the tilt away nestboxes just use some sort of astro turf or artificial grass in their boxes. It apparently works for them. Mine just have shavings covered with shredded paper.

 

[Uzuri]

Mine like to scrape down to the wood and lay. So yes to hard surface.

But, that said, if you CHANGE something, they will hate you forever and lay everywhere but in the box.

 

[nikkichikki]

For a while there, mine were laying on the floor of the coop. I have coastal hay on the floor, and they'd dig around and make a nest so that they ended up laying on the galvanized flooring underneath. Everytime I threw more hay down they just made it deeper so that they were laying on the floor everytime. I even put golf balls in the nesting box, but it seems they just got the memo yesterday... all three finally laid in the box! Hooray! Oddly enough, though, they were dirtier than when they just laid on the floor...

 

[nikkichikki]

Quote:

SO TRUE!!! I didn't get a chance to free range last night, I'm willing to bet I get NO eggs today.