New hens not going into Eglu Go Up

[Gelbel]

OMG - Just been out to say, "Morning", to the girls and there are no eggs. But I noticed the girls ran to the coop area like greyhounds let out the traps when I went to check for eggs.

 

Then it dawned on me - I cleaned the runs, coop and next box in such a rush yesterday (between a trip to the gym and prepping the dinner and going out for the afternoon) that I did not open the coop door after closing it as the wind was causing all sorts of problems as I relined the coop and nest box with newspaper.

 

I felt so guilty when I opened it up.

 

And if that was not bad enough, Cissie and Ada are now totally confused and upset - I found half a bag of wood shavings so decided to use it up in the nest rather than the shreaded paper they are used to.

 

Madge is 'talking' to me louder than usual and my ears are burning so I bet Cissie and Ada are having a right old moan about me.

Edited September 6, 2010 by Guest

[CallyChook]

I'm glad other folks do things like this too My son is a terror for closing the pophole door in the daytime. I always lock them in overnight, and a few times over the summer I've gone to lock them up for the night to find them queueing to get into a shut-up coop, and very annoyed that they have been so inconvenienced to have to lay their eggs elsewhere than the nestbox.

 

xx

[Blue-DiamondChick07]

I did that once too, I wondered why my girls were huddled asleep in the corner, I had forgotten the pop hole door

[the-real-tinkerbell]

i did this the other day found my girls asleep on the cube ladder lol ,i never close the door apart from when im cleaning it out ,so just forgot ,ive also left them locked in till lunch time lol the otherday i asked my daughter to shut her chickens in (she has 3 exbatt in a go ,but as they have no feathers i shut the door oin them to keep them warm )

anyways she shut all 3 coops but i only let the exbatts out in my rush to get to work .

 

my sister phoned me at lunch to say she had been round to steal eggs and had let my ladies out loll

[Gelbel]

And I have just popped out for the lunchtime chat with my girls (you have to love working from home ) and they have laid in the coop, not the nest box, and have shreaded all the nest box newspaper lining and kicked the wood shavings everywhere.

 

But I can't quite understand all the mess - as they've always just gone in and plopped themselves in the shreaded paper to lay - and I plump it up like a cushion and change it out once a week.

[dixie chick]

I felt so mean last night - I had removed the gangplank up to the pop hole to give it a good power wash and forgotten to put it back. When I went to close the pop hole after dusk, I found poor Mrs Moss the Buff Orpington, alone and wandering around dejectedly. All the others had managed to jump up and in without the gangplank - but this was clearly too difficult a manoeuvre for her .....poor thing. ( She seems to have forgiven me today though ...)

[Lavenders_Blue]

And I have just popped out for the lunchtime chat with my girls (you have to love working from home ) and they have laid in the coop, not the nest box, and have shreaded all the nest box newspaper lining and kicked the wood shavings everywhere.

 

But I can't quite understand all the mess - as they've always just gone in and plopped themselves in the shreaded paper to lay - and I plump it up like a cushion and change it out once a week.

 

I had a similar problem the other day. My girls have always layed their eggs on the floor of the coop instead of the nest box (out of choice I hasten to add!) At the end of last week I had a brainwave (only took me 11 months ) and I 'borrowed' a couple of small propagator trays from my Dad which are just the right size to fit on the floor of the coop as nest boxes. Much neater than my usual mess of wood shavings all over the floor of the coop. Anyhow, despite filling the trays with the girls' usual wood shavings, the new nests were not well received and there was a lot of bok bokking and general flinging around of the wood shavings. In fact it looked like a bomb had gone off in the coop.

 

Thankfully we are now 4 days on and they seem to have come to terms with the new arrangements!

[the bradley bunch]

I felt so mean last night - I had removed the gangplank up to the pop hole to give it a good power wash and forgotten to put it back. When I went to close the pop hole after dusk, I found poor Mrs Moss the Buff Orpington, alone and wandering around dejectedly. All the others had managed to jump up and in without the gangplank - but this was clearly too difficult a manoeuvre for her .....poor thing. ( She seems to have forgiven me today though ...)

 

:lol: (i'm so sorry dixie i know it isn't funny but the image of your poor orp trying to do the manoeuvre is hilarious)

...shame on me now, don't tell her i laughed