First egg

My first flock of chickens will be ready to lay their first eggs in a few weeks. What's a good way to encourage them to use the nest boxes rather than just laying the eggs in a corner of the coop.

I wish I knew the answer to this one. Ours lay in the hay loft, on the ground, in the sheep pen, oh, and sometimes in the laying baskets! A friend told me that it is important for the laying boxes to face north so that there is the least amount of light on them, but I have not tried out this theory yet.

Frank
Staunton, VA

I am no expert but my farm girl wife just moved any mislaid eggs into one of the boxes. It seemed to work. Took a minute but as I remember the old hen house on the farm faced east and ours faced south and had a good size window in the south wall. The window had an extended roof over it to shade the it.

You'll get some in the egg boxes, and some all over the place. Are you free ranging your chickens? That's what we do. You have to keep searching, and hopefully, you'll find the chickens' favorite laying spots, and you'll be able to collect as many eggs as possible. Every once in a while, we'll move something in one of our barns and find a collection of eggs that we didn't expect. Since we don't know how long they were sitting there, we feed them back to the chickens. Chickens love smashed eggs!![img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

We have some fake eggs (ceramic?) for that purpose. Keep a couple in each nesting box and collect the eggs laid errantly ASAP and the biddies soon get the idea. What kinda chickens you got?

RichZ,

I think you have just trained your chickens to eat eggs. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

I keep 28 layers and have 5 boxes. At first, the hens would only use two of the boxes. This sometimes resulted in 5 or 6 hens cramming themselves ino the same small space or laying their eggs randomly in the coop. The solution was to place a golf ball in each of the boxes. Apparently, hens like to lay their eggs where others have. They think the ball is another egg. All of the boxes are now in use. Also, chickens are cannibalsitc; therefore, I avoid letting them eat broken eggs. Once they get a taste they begin to destroy perfectly good eggs.

I like the golf ball idea, I hadn't thought og that. We have tried leaving one egg out in the boxes and marking it with an "X" so that we knew which one it was and could leave it there. That seemed to work somewhat, but they still only used one of the four boxes. Golf balls tonight, report in a few days!

Frank

Andy -- We free range our chickens, but lock them up in the coop for safety at night. To get them to lay in the nesting boxes as their time comes we simply don't let them out till mid to late morning. Once the first egg is laid in the box, like others have said the rest of the hens follow suit.

Pete

<font color="blue"> What kinda chickens you got? </font color>

I have Buff Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds. A friend and I bought 25 of each in May and I kept 20 of the Buffs and 10 Rhode Island Reds. We ordered sexed birds and I ended up with one Rooster.

I keep the birds in an 8X8 coop I added on to my barn and during the day let them out into a fenced yard which is about 24X20. A few times a week I let them out into the field for a few hours so that they can eat some grass and clover and find a few more insects.

We've done a couple of things - the golf balls have worked for us. Also, as time goes on they tend to wander a little more - they have basically a horse stall with "laying shelves" (a board about 16" wide x 8' long with a 1' back and a 2x4 front), and the door to the "coop" rarely gets closed. When they begin to lay enmasse outside, we just keep them in the coop for a couple of days (they do have a small screened run to go out into), that seems to "remind' them where to do their business.
Good Luck!

I want some Buff Orpingtons but I'm having a hard time finding a local breeder. The ones they sell up here at the COOP are all sex-links. Not a "breed" I consider worth owning for the backyard. The few Canadian breeders I have found all want about 6$ per chick - not gonna happen.

We got a 3 yo RI Red rooster thats very savvy and keeps his biddies safe and can flat wake you up at daylight. The hens include Red Leghorns, Aracuans, and Barred Rocks. The Barred Rocks are big egg producers but are dumber than a stump and prefer pellets over scratching for bugs. They're all turned out mid-morning and invariably deposit a few eggs each day up high in the haystack to be found by me pulling a bale down from above my head.

We've got one Barred Rock hen that sometimes jumps into the space between bales of hay in the barn to lay eggs. Then she can't get out. Every night when I lock up our hens at night, I count each variety we have. If one Barred Rock is missing, I have to go in the barn and shine a light inside all the spaces between our stacks of hay bales. Eventually I will find her. Before I realized that she was doing that, she was once missing for several days. She never learns!!

My grandparents, being the thrifty folks that they were, found a few egg shaped stones and put them in the nests. I remember finding one when I collected eggs as a kid. I guess I was dumber than the chickens... I collected it up with the eggs and took it in the house. How my grandmother laughed at me when she discovered it! She said she figured I must have been hungry for a really hard boiled egg that morning! [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

I have an innocent question. We don't have any chickens, so I am wondering why poultry breeds have such strange names (or maybe the poultry folks think dog breeds have strange names, as well [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] )

Barred Rocks...where does that come from?

Is Orpington someone's name, or a place name??

Just curious.

Full name "Barred Plymouth Rock" "barred" as in "striped"

"Orpington" is a city in the UK

The origins of most of todays breed are from England or New England. Then you have the Silkie breeds developed in Japan for their silky feathers. Some of the prettiest originated in the Caribean Islands and the Brazil/Chile area, hence the Dominique and the Red Chilean breeds. A Dominique egg being the best tasting fried egg I've ever tasted and they are very majestic birds to look at.

My wife uses those plastic easter eggs that are hollow. Puts one in each nesting box and has worked great!!!

It's time to dig out the fake easter eggs and golf balls. I found the first egg this morning on the floor of the coop. The hens have spent some time in the nest boxes, but still need to learn to lay their eggs in them.