The Poultry Keeper

milkmaid · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 6735 Location: isle of lewis

i was talking to debs today (we thought we'd better stop before i got sacked) about a black rock ,she will only lay in the goat house ,i feed the hens i the morning and about half an hour later i have to go and open the door to the hen house and call her she comes to the door walks past me looking at me as if to say ,about time to , she jumps into the goat shed and lays an egg and about 15 min later waits to be let back in .if i don't do this she escapes and lets all the other hens out and we have a mass break out ,if she can't get out then she gets really upset, has anyone else got this problem ,or have i justy got a weird chicken (her name is becky )
suz

summayah · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 4289 Location: luton

I think you have a weird chicken , who possibly thinks she's a goat with chicken tendencies

debcat · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:12 pm Post subject:

I can't get any of mine to lay in a nest box.
They love the corners of the barn and the top of the hay bales, anywhere except where they are supposed to be laying.
When the horses where in for the winter one was laying in the corner of the stable, it was a race to see whether I got there before Celtie trod on it. I usually lost. Now the horses are out she's stopped
You'll have to get your boss into chooks Laughing

Lisa · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:25 pm Post subject:

I would say it depends how much of a problem it is for YOU that they do this...

If it is a problem then I would think there are 2 main things to do at the same time:

1) stop them getting at the places they would like to lay in, and

2) give them access to the place you want them to lay in.

You say if you keep her in the run then she'd get upset, but could you leave her in the house and run and just ignore her? Eventually she would have to give up because she would need to lay an egg.

The other thing that springs to mind is that they ARE happy to lay in the places that they are laying. What are those places like? Can you give them a simillar type of place (bedding material, level of light etc) in their run?

Thats all I can think of to try Confused

Good Luck! Smile

pollypekin · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 183 Location: Kent

My welsummer and cream legbar wait to be let out every morning and make a mad dash to my aviary, where I keep feed, etc, and lay their eggs on the bale of straw in the corner behind the feedbins Shocked

sally

NannyP · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 11:09 pm Post subject:

I know when my others went broody recently, I locked them out of the coop. Those that were still laying, kept going back and forth hoping it would be open. Eventually they laid under a shrub. Rosie desperately tried to get into the nest box with Blue and the eggs, I turfed her out twice, she was not happy, and then she laid, on the ground outside. So, as Lisa says, if you, lock them in and ignore, they have to lay the egg eventually, and I guess if you do this for a few days, it'll break there habit.
On a slightly differnet note, it only took 3 days and nights of sleeping in the cold, outside the coop, to break the girls from their broodiness, I thought I was in for a longer task Laughing

milkmaid · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 6735 Location: isle of lewis

no it's not a problem as she only goes in there to lay an egg and then back in she goes ,it's just funny thats all ,gizzy (lisa just took the puppy for a walk and said she was waiting to be let out and stright into the goatshed she went ,yes i think your right she is a hen that thinks ,she's a goat how am i going to milk her
suz

summayah · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 4289 Location: luton

ah, tricky that, maybe she thinks she's a billy goat