Feeding advice for bantams (one broody, one moulting)

[SeasideChick]

Hi All,

 

OK, I'm a newbie to chook keeping ... have had my 4 girls for almost 5 weeks now and they are now laying beautifully HOWEVER, we found that if we didn't cover over the hole to the nesting box, they'd all sleep in there and poo everywhere ... not a nice place to lay eggs. So my husband made a flap to cover it over and which we remove 1st thing in the morning (7a.m.). It's obviously not early enough for our girls .... 1 chicken manages somehow to push open the flap and lay her egg in the nesting box, but can't get back out again and one of the other chickens just lays her eggs on the roosting bars!

 

Has anyone else had this situation ... and is it OK for chickens to lay their eggs on roosting bars?

 

Thanks !

[chelsea]

yes our old girl Ella doesnt care where she lays (she kind of does what she wants around here!). She lays on the roosting bars, on the lawn and in the base of the run.

 

We also have 1 nest box sleeper aswell , my maran likes to sleep in the nestbox so we leave her to it and I pick out the poo daily.

 

You could maybe rig up a makeshift nesting box - some people use a childs potty with hemcore/nesting material in or something similar in size and shape and your other chook could lay in that.

[Hen Watch]

My pampered girls like sleeping (and pooing) in the nestbox and they look so cute I havn't the heart to turf them out.

 

As I shut mine in the eglu until 7.15am I usually find 1 or 2 eggs by then. The nestbox has Auboise bedding in it so the poos dry out a bit but I don't mind wiping the eggs down and flicking out the odd bit of debris through the bars into the poo tray.

[clucking mad]

aparently you can train them to lay eggs in the nest bit.

everytime they are about to lay an egg just put them on it and they will soon get used to it and do it naturally.