Hi all,
I've had my rescued girls for about 2 months now and they are starting to lay. However, it appears that one or two are laying while sat on the roost/bar as I'm finding broken eggs below it. Some have laid in the nesting boxes (of which there are three big ones). Is this a problem anyone else has had with ex-caged birds?
Thanks
You need to be a member of ooooby3 to add comments!
Hi Helen,
I too had rescued battery Hens which first had to learn how to walk. They lay in the nesting box using the ping pong ball technique but still don't roost. I remove the poo for fruit trees and composting by hand from the pen. They Poo where they perch mainly. Good luck with the girls.
Hi there,
Because your Girls have come from an egg farm They turn the lights on at night so they lay two eggs per 24 hours. Maybe, her body hasn't adjusted to the lights being out yet. Not sure what you can do about that other than hang a bucket with heaps of padding in it under the purch. :-)
I clear my nest box each day of poop by hand it makes great fertiliser for the fruit trees and its easy enough to clean out if you keep on top of it poop should not be gettig to such a high level that your birds are laying on top of it this could add to disease problems.
Yes, I think I'll try the padding method with extra straw. Trouble is, there's also lots of poo under the perch and they obviously have their set places along the length as the egg is in same place every day. Is it okay to eat an egg that's been sat atop a pile of poo?
In one way I'm really pleased they're perching - it took me a few nights of turfing them out of the corner of the coop where they huddled together and putting them on the perch before they took to it! It's just going to be a wee bit more difficult to teach them where to lay lol
I can only assume that also means that the eggs are laid during the night, the only time they are on perch, as they are let out pretty much as sun is rising - excuse my ignorance but I thought they laid during daylight hours?
maybe you could wrap the perch in padding, like carpet under lay or foam, to protect the eggs and maybe you could beef up the hay underneath to give the eggs more protection.
Hi Helen. Stupid things - I had to laugh when I read this! Our last lot of chooks were 'rescued' from a battery farm and they definitely had no idea that they were chickens. They slept in the nesting box and never did learn to roost, despite my kids climbing in to the henhouse and modeling the required behaviour - hee hee. My only suggestion would be to put ping-pong balls in the nesting box to give them the idea - although you would think the clueless chooks would imitate their smarter friends. Or maybe the only answer is to lower, or remove, the perch, so the eggs don't break? (or maybe a cushion underneath!!!) You could always put it back once they had sorted themselves out. Good luck!
Replies
I too had rescued battery Hens which first had to learn how to walk. They lay in the nesting box using the ping pong ball technique but still don't roost. I remove the poo for fruit trees and composting by hand from the pen. They Poo where they perch mainly. Good luck with the girls.
Because your Girls have come from an egg farm They turn the lights on at night so they lay two eggs per 24 hours. Maybe, her body hasn't adjusted to the lights being out yet. Not sure what you can do about that other than hang a bucket with heaps of padding in it under the purch. :-)
In one way I'm really pleased they're perching - it took me a few nights of turfing them out of the corner of the coop where they huddled together and putting them on the perch before they took to it! It's just going to be a wee bit more difficult to teach them where to lay lol
I can only assume that also means that the eggs are laid during the night, the only time they are on perch, as they are let out pretty much as sun is rising - excuse my ignorance but I thought they laid during daylight hours?