The Poultry Keeper

Lemlanluce · Joined: 29 Mar 2008 Posts: 17

Hi
We have three lovely chickens who have just started laying. Two Wellsummers and one Marans. First egg was soft-shell, pale and in the stable under the perch. Great! Second two were also pale but layed off a 1' wall onto concrete and smashed- not great! Then we found a clutch of 6 dark browns inthe woodshed- left a wooden egg in replacement and enjoyed the spoils. Two more laid there by Marans in subsequent days, but no more pale ones to be found.
Questions:
Does experience tell you there are more pale ?Wellsummer? eggs somewhere in the garden where chickens roam? Or would it be normal for the pale-layer to have produced nothing for three-four days?
How best to encourage them to lay in nestbox in stable?
Ideas for funny places to look for eggs?!
Is it normal for identically aged chickens to lay at different times? One Welsummer has large red comb and must be layer, but other Welsummer has much smaller comb, presumably not laying yet?
More of wonderful advice PLEASE!!

mojo · Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:12 pm Post subject:

chickens will lay in a nice dark place so make your nest box fit the bill also delay letting them out for an extra hour to encourage nest box laying....try to cut down on hidey holes.........shut the wood shed door...every hen is differant so expect differant egg laying .....finding hidden eggs is just one of the joys of poultry keeping

Lemlanluce · Joined: 29 Mar 2008 Posts: 17

Was worried you'd say that! Difficult to cut down on hidey holes as chooks have access to our whole garden which is very over grown (an ongoing project, we've just moved in!).
Will try keeping them in a bit longer, though the woodshed-layer wasn't laying til about 2pm or 3pm! Also, no door on the woodshed!
The nestbox is in the stable where they overnight, very dark and secluded but they just dont seem to hang out there during the daytime.
Also, is it normal for inconsistent laying? ie two days of eggs, then three or four of none, or do we just need to hunt harder? I guess something else could have got to the eggs before us of course...
Thanks

Chickweed · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 87 Location: Baldock, Herts

Every so often our egg supply seems to dry up. After a couple of days we go on a hunt, or better still listen for quiet clucking from the undergrowth. We usually find the missing eggs in a scrape under a bush next to a fence. They have several of these and they are always behind brambles or thorn bushes. Ouch!!!

When we remove the eggs they go straight back to laying in the nest box..... till next time.

Pekinout · Joined: 29 Apr 2008 Posts: 1219 Location: Cornwall

You want to buy some china eggs and leave them in the nestboxes, they soon learn thats where they have to lay.

crazypianolady · Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 793 Location: Nottinghamshire

One of my ex-batts laid some eggs behind the shed, but has now decided the nesting boxes are far more comfortable! I left crock eggs in the nest boxes for a couple of weeks, they really did the trick! (Although I do still check behind the shed just in case.....) Smile

Stujan · Joined: 05 Jul 2008 Posts: 465 Location: East Sussex

We have four hens that we got about 5 weeks ago at POL and they are all laying great, one a day each and Thunder the haze seems to be prolific in making double yolkers, we also have ten ex batts which we got two weeks ago , at the moment we are keeping the ex batts in a seperate run , till they get used to the first four peering at then through the wire netting , anyway what we noticed was that from the ex batts we are only getting three eggs a day but things are on the up as there combs are getting much redder and starting to stand up propper , except lttle Bodacea , she looks like a french floozy with her comb laying large and flat over one eye!! lol , they were laying all over the place but I turned an egg on the lathe from a spare bit of apple wood and put it in the house and all the eggs are now being laid right with the wooden one , I made the wooden one so that when they sat down they didn't get a shock from a cold china one as they are still lacking in a full plumage , try finding a wooden one and see if they like it , might work eh!

Lemlanluce · Joined: 29 Mar 2008 Posts: 17

Thanks, posting this from on holiday in France, so I'm looking forward to seeing how many eggs our neighbour has enjoyed in our absence!
Fortunately our children have wooden play eggs and even a rubber bouncy one, so we will lay these as bait in the nest box. I think we'd got so used to the chooks being out ALL the time that we had forgotten we could keep them in quite comfortably for most of the morning and let them out after laying had taken place. All things to try when we get back home.
In the meantime, the sunshine here is great!

Lemlanluce · Joined: 29 Mar 2008 Posts: 17

Returned from holiday and discovered Lady's nest with 13 eggs in it! now we know laying location of all three hens, let the omelettes begin! Laughing

CP · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:49 am Post subject:

Henwife · Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 3540 Location: Monmouthshire

I'm glad to see you have discovered where the hens are laying at the moment, because keeping them shut in will have no effect whatsoever. Only ducks can be relied upon to lay before 10a.m (or not that day). As the egg production cycle is more than 24 hours, it is reasonable to expect eggs to be laid a different times of day by the same hen - and also for a day to be missed. I do an egg collection round at 4p.m, but there may well be a few eggs when I shut up at dusk (or there are some in the morning if I didn't check at night). Since they don't lay in the dark, if I've collected in the evening, there won't be any in the morning , unless it's a newby pullet taken by surprise and the egg is splatted below the perch!