What makes a chicken coop easy to live with?

[Yolky]

One of my chooks has taken to laying on the roosting bars. I am not too sure how to stop her doing this.

 

Thanks

[Egluntyne]

You could try putting a couple of golf balls into the nest box to give her a clue.

[Purplemaniacs]

Ebony used to lay on the bars, we tried putting golf balls and a rubber egg in the next box but Ebony continued to lay her eggs on the bars. When the others started to lay they used the nest but she carried on using the bars. THEN Ebony became broody and discovered the nest box When she started to lay again she laid in the nest box and has continued to lay there since:lol:

 

Chrissie

[chuckmum]

We have the same problem. Mabel has got into the habit of laying on the bars. We put a roosting bar in the eglu and we got cracked eggs (was she laying from the bar????). To stop them being bashed I put paper over the slats but this seemed to be ok for her - she just layed on the paper!! She's not totally patterned on the slats however and sometimes does oblige us by laying in the next box. I haven't a clue as to what is going on

[helenmb]

I bought a china egg from The Domestic Fowl Trust for 75p plus 35p postage. This worked well for me (they do Bantum sized ones too).

[Valkyrie]

Apache has been doing this too. Then she laid one in the nesting box and we thought at last she's got the idea. Yesterday OH found one in the garden which we assumed was hers (the colour was right) and this morning back to the roosting bars, and it had a hole in it. I wondered if she was having a peck at it too. Sioux is so much more clever than Apache, at least she gets it right, even if she is in the box for 20 minutes at a time. I don't think Apache knows what's up yet. We did have a ceramic egg in the box, but Sioux laid one on it and hers cracked a bit, so I removed it as it looked like they knew where to go. Also they are all ignoring their breakfast these past few days, so they didn't get any this morning, just the pellets on their own. I'm so mean.