Younger chickens destroying nesting boxes - HELP!

[LostTesseract]

Ok folks, this one is really confusing me. Any and all advice on how to stop this behavior is greatly appreciated.

We have 16 hens. The eldest are about 7 months. 4 of them are laying. They are free ranging daily and lay faithfully in their boxes. The youngest are 3 or 4 months. We have 5 sapphire gems and two (or maybe more) of them have taken to daily scratching all of the chopped hay out of the nesting boxes and defacating all over them at midday. Every day we fix them they dig them out and vandalize the nests again the very next day. They do it LOUDLY and when I catch them doing it I chase them out of the coop, but they are undeterred, and they continue their destruction as soon as I turn my back.

What in the world is going on? Why are they doing this? How can I stop them? What is the problem? Will they stop when they start laying? I physically do not understand what in the world would motivate this behavior and I don't really understand how to limit their access to the coops but not limit the other, well behaved hens. I mean the other girls don't really hang out in the coop during the day unless they are laying. But these sapphires roll around in a gang and they are constantly in the coop and they intentionally trash the comfy nests. I am so irritated with this behavior and I don't know where to begin to address it.

Again, thank you so much in advance for your insight and advice, I am totally baffled and I will do anything I can to make these idiots stop their reign of destruction!

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

Do you have something else you can use for the bedding in nest boxes? I don't think they are intentionally destroying nests so much as looking for a place to scratch and forage. They obviously really like the hay. Try an experiment, put some in a shallow container with the nesting filler a little bit away from nesting boxes and see if they do the same to it.

 

[LostTesseract]

Do you have something else you can use for the bedding in nest boxes? I don't think they are intentionally destroying nests so much as looking for a place to scratch and forage. They obviously really like the hay. Try an experiment, put some in a shallow container with the nesting filler a little bit away from nesting boxes and see if they do the same to it.

OK, thank you for the idea. Yes, I can put shavings instead,for now, and I'll look up other materials for the future and see what works best. Frustrating though, because they have full unlimited daytime reign over several acres to scratch and dig to their hearts content... And there's never been any food in the coop to scratch for! They're not going to find anything but turds.
Thanks again

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

OK, thank you for the idea. Yes, I can put shavings instead,for now, and I'll look up other materials for the future and see what works best. Frustrating though, because they have full unlimited daytime reign over several acres to scratch and dig to their hearts content... And there's never been any food in the coop to scratch for! They're not going to find anything but turds.
Thanks again

the tale of many chickens unfortunately. They can have all the land in the world but will choose to hang out where they can get up to the most mischief. My flock would destroy a bale of hay purely for the fun of all the scratch, scratch scratching.

 

[Tonyroo]

Hay or straw have seeds in it. My chickens do the samething looking for the seeds. Using wood shavings in the nesting box should make them stop.

 

[LostTesseract]

Hay or straw have seeds in it. My chickens do the samething looking for the seeds. Using wood shavings in the nesting box should make them stop.

Thank you so much for your response. I will do this and wait with baited breath.

 

[aart]

Could be those younger birds are hanging out int he coop and nests to stay away from the older birds?

 

[LostTesseract]

Could be those younger birds are hanging out int he coop and nests to stay away from the older birds?

I mean, that could be, but they all get along really well. Nobody gets plucked, harmed or bullied. The sapphires are a bit smaller but not by much. They've obviously established their pecking order but none of them are bullied or kept away from food or water. They do have cliques but over the course of the day they intermingle pleasantly. The benevolent rooster spends time with all the ladies and supervises, he never chases or pecks any of them that I've seen. He'll occasionally catch one of the sparrows who've taken to pirating their feed, though.

 

[LostTesseract]

Ok folks, this one is really confusing me. Any and all advice on how to stop this behavior is greatly appreciated.

We have 16 hens. The eldest are about 7 months. 4 of them are laying. They are free ranging daily and lay faithfully in their boxes. The youngest are 3 or 4 months. We have 5 sapphire gems and two (or maybe more) of them have taken to daily scratching all of the chopped hay out of the nesting boxes and defacating all over them at midday. Every day we fix them they dig them out and vandalize the nests again the very next day. They do it LOUDLY and when I catch them doing it I chase them out of the coop, but they are undeterred, and they continue their destruction as soon as I turn my back.

What in the world is going on? Why are they doing this? How can I stop them? What is the problem? Will they stop when they start laying? I physically do not understand what in the world would motivate this behavior and I don't really understand how to limit their access to the coops but not limit the other, well behaved hens. I mean the other girls don't really hang out in the coop during the day unless they are laying. But these sapphires roll around in a gang and they are constantly in the coop and they intentionally trash the comfy nests. I am so irritated with this behavior and I don't know where to begin to address it.

Again, thank you so much in advance for your insight and advice, I am totally baffled and I will do anything I can to make these idiots stop their reign of destruction!

Update: the nesting boxes have been bedded with pine shavings and they are still being scratched, though not as much. I really tried to remove every vestige of hay from the boxes before refilling them. The coop is very waterproof... Maybe I should place shredded newspaper instead or the paper bedding that is sold for rodent cages? Stumped.

 

[aart]

Update: the nesting boxes have been bedded with pine shavings and they are still being scratched, though not as much. I really tried to remove every vestige of hay from the boxes before refilling them. The coop is very waterproof... Maybe I should place shredded newspaper instead or the paper bedding that is sold for rodent cages? Stumped.

They are going to scratch around some, especially new layers can make a real mess.