We’ve got four chooks in our backyard, and they’ve been laying four wonderful eggs every day for the last couple of months. Until nearly two weeks ago, since when we’ve only been getting three eggs a day…
Coincidentally, from that time, I’ve found ONE of the chooks early each morning in the non-chook part of the garden. I couldn’t figure out HOW she was getting out of the fenced area, nor could I find the eggs I was damned sure she was laying in some surreptitious hidey-hole.
So last night they were locked up in their shed…and upon letting them out this morning, three of the chickens went ambling about, and ONE made a bee-line for the gate.
And she ran up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down (for 15 minutes) looking for a way OUT. Eventually she wiggled through a gap in the gate and with true chooky determination, found her nest under the passionfruit vine.
I could almost hear her sigh of relief when she managed to pop her egg out! In total there were eleven eggs in her niche!
Anyway, I’ve blocked her escape route now, so tomorrow is going to be another ordeal for the poor thing…either she’ll lay where the others’ do, or she’ll find some other spot that I have to hunt down…just to give me the shits.
Heh. Yes, they do (have to do what a chicken’s gotta do).
Mine are “free range”. In other words, they roam the entire yard, which is fenced in (when they don’t fly over the fence and wander into the woods). I noticed a marked drop in egg production a while ago as well. Eight hens and six, five, four, three, two, and finally one egg. Buggers! So I went on an egg hunt. Found 20 eggs neatly deposited in one compost box and a further six eggs in the other compost box. After I foiled their compost box addiction, two of them decided the far side of the fence (in the woods) would be a better place. A fox ate one of them and the other one has deigned to lay her eggs in the nesting boxes now. We’ll see what they come up with next.
Early on in our chicken adventure, two of the ladies decided that our screen porch would make a more appealing nesting place. We have a pet flap (just a flap of screening) for the dogs and cats and the chickens figured it out. They did it for about a week (long enough to establish a nice pattern in their tiny little brains) while we were on holiday and had a house/pet sitter.
Upon our return my husband decreed that the porch was not a good place for chickens. One lady disagreed and became VERY determined. Hubby spent an entire Saturday leaping up and flapping her off the porch. (chickens really, really don’t like things that flap). She’d march up the path from the coop to the porch (between the three foot snow banks) and he’d leap out of his chair and flap her back with a blanket. Much yelling and squawking was involved. Her final run of the day was just before dusk and he didn’t catch her until she was nearly in the porch. Instead of racing back to the coop, she made a dash for under the porch. I was not pleased, figuring she’d hunker down for the night and probably freeze to death under there or get eaten by a local marauding raccoon. He didn’t much care, said it would “serve her right”.
Half an hour or so later I looked up to see my chicken marching determinedly back to the coop. “Oh good” I thought, “She’s safe for the night” and went out to close up the coop. Came back via the porch and voila’, there was the nice fresh egg.
Chickens - 27
Humans - 0
How DOES one train a laying hen to deposit her eggs in the desired nesting place? Put an artificial egg underneath her while she’s asleep and let her keep her eggs for a couple of days, or what?
You put something eggish in the desired nest area for a while, generally. They’re more prone to find a space acceptable if it looks like another bird thinks it’s okay, and then they get in the habit of laying in a certain spot. A lot of people use golf balls, or they make wooden/ceramic eggs just for that purpose.
Sure. Except when you leave the egg out there, you can’t eat it for breakfast and also some chickens are egg eaters. It’s not a bad thing to have something that looks like an egg but is uncomfortable to peck on hand for such occasions.
Take a raw egg,poke a hole in both ends… blow the contents into a bowl… Close one end (tape/wax/whatever) Fill the shell with table salt. Close the other end. drizzle a bit of egg yolk over the egg(or not) put the saltegg in the nest … If a snake eats it=dead snake… if a chicken trys to eat it,she gets thirsty,but no harm. Same with a dog…
You really need to shoot a video of this.