Won't lay in nest box

[Gma213]

We have a pullet (10 months old) that is laying her eggs in the run- not in a nest box inside the coop. We have 16 hens- all the rest lay in the nest boxes. We have 6 nest boxes that all contain a fake egg. I have watched her (on our chicken cam) look in the nest boxes and then go out into the run and lay her egg. When she lays her egg in the run there are always at least 4 empty nest boxes. We have not seen any bullying. Any idea what we can do to encourage her to lay in the nest boxes?

 

[Mantisquailman]

Maybe you could sprinkle some mealworms on the ramp to go into the nesting box.

 

[rosemarythyme]

How long as this been going on for? Now this isn't practical if you don't have time to stalk them, but what I did was I learned the problem bird(s) laying schedules, and when they went to their preferred spot to lay, I'd go and pick them up, stick them in a nest box, and barricade them in using my arms to cover the exit. 30-60 seconds was all they needed to calm down and start exploring the box and decide that maybe it wasn't such a bad place to be. They each started reliably using the boxes after that.

Alternatively, some folks design "doors" on their nest boxes so birds can be locked in, which basically does the same as above, but forces the bird to stay in the nest box (whereas once I see them exploring and sitting down in the nest, I leave them to it and walk away).

 

[Gma213]

This has been going on for several weeks. I do have a way to lower a door over the nest box, unfortunately it covers 4 out of 6 nest boxes That would cause a traffic jam at the other 2 open boxes. Maybe I can come up with a way to just shut her in one egg box. She is a Welsumer, of course she is the one hen who really doesn't like people.

 

[rosemarythyme]

This has been going on for several weeks. I do have a way to lower a door over the nest box, unfortunately it covers 4 out of 6 nest boxes That would cause a traffic jam at the other 2 open boxes. Maybe I can come up with a way to just shut her in one egg box. She is a Welsumer, of course she is the one hen who really doesn't like people.

Yeah you'd only want to be able to keep her inside one box, not block off the rest of the boxes. And she may not like it whatsoever - if she panics at being locked in, you may just need to accept that she's going to lay where she's laying, rather than risking her hurting herself. But so far I've had luck just blocking the birds in long enough to get them to sit down in the nest, and they take it from there.

 

[Bertram]

I've given up on trying to get my hens to lay in the nesting boxes. The only thing that seems to work is locking them in an enclosed area but then they go on strike and won't lay.

 

[Gma213]

Yeah you'd only want to be able to keep her inside one box, not block off the rest of the boxes. And she may not like it whatsoever - if she panics at being locked in, you may just need to accept that she's going to lay where she's laying, rather than risking her hurting herself. But so far I've had luck just blocking the birds in long enough to get them to sit down in the nest, and they take it from there.

I'll try locking her in the nest box. Thank you for the suggestion.

 

[Gma213]

Locking her in a nest box for a few hours one day did the trcik! She lays her eggs in the nest box now.