by Karla T.

Q. Our hen is laying eggs on the floor. How to get her in the nesting boxes or doesn’t it matter? — Karen S., West Sunbury, Pennsylvania

A. The main reason that I would say it does matter where they lay is that you want to be able to FIND them. For example my husband had set a couple of empty feed bags in a corner of our coop and leaned an old cardboard box over it. A few weeks later he went to throw them away and he discovered that the chickens had laid nearly 30 eggs in their makeshift lean-to! No wonder we’d been experiencing a reduction in production.

Having the eggs in the nest box also helps keep them cleaner (usually) and protects them from being stepped on by chickens and humans.

Other then those reasons of convenience, I don’t believe it is of major importance for the eggs to be in the nest box. There’s been many times that our hens have discovered a dark corner that they favored for laying and it worked fine for us and them.

A few hints for getting them to lay in their boxes:

• If the boxes are raised off the floor, try lowering them to floor level until they begin using them and then raise them up again.
• Try leaving a couple of golf balls or wooden eggs in the boxes. Somehow this can help chickens figure out what the boxes are for. This worked for us.
• Keep plenty of clean shavings in the boxes. When we add a thick layer of clean shavings it increases their utilization of the boxes.
• Placing the boxes in a quiet and dark area of the hen house can help. They like to feel that they are laying their eggs someplace safe.
• If hens are laying outside, it may help to keep them confined to the coop until later in the morning. Try different times of letting them out to see what works.