I love having free range chickens.....but the egg hunt is getting old! We built a delux coop for our ladies and Bubby the Rooster to keep them cozy and laying during the winter months. I was so happy when they actually started laying in the nestng boxes -instead of pooping and roosting in them as they did when they first moved it. But now that the snow has melted and they can range freely, they're back to their old habits of hiding eggs. They'll generally all lay in the same spot, it's just finding them that's hard. Then when i find the nest- which is usually nicely built in a bush or behind a hay bale, there's days worth of eggs and i don't know if they're good to eat any more. any ideas on how to get them to lay in their nests... or how to determine if an egg is still good for eating? Does anyone else's chickens have these laying habits?
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Re: Egg Hunts
Sun, March 23, 2008 - 10:06 AMI have araucana mixes (easter eggers) and they are notorious egg hiders as a breed. Not sure about other breeds, and of course, there's always the individual chicken's strange habits. What breeds are yours?
But, all you need once you find the eggs is the water test. Put the raw egg in water. If it tilts up to 45 degrees, the egg is good. If it floats or goes totally vertical, it's bad. In between 45 degrees and vertical, I crack em into a bowl and sniff, since a bad egg is easy to smell. -
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Re: Egg Hunts
Sat, March 29, 2008 - 1:59 PMHave you ever crossbred these chickens and if so what colour are the offsprings eggs? I have a couple of hens that lay blue/olive green eggs. I think, if I understood correctly, that the gene for the blue/coloured egg is dominant over the white egg gene, but the brown egg gene is dominant over the blue/coloured egg. Is that right? -
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Re: Egg Hunts
Sat, March 29, 2008 - 5:03 PMMy understanding is that the blue/green genes can be separate from the brown/white genes, so a blue egg layer is a white or blue/green gene with blue/green gene and the olive egg layers are brown gene with blue/green gene. Here's an article on it, but no explanation of what's dominant between blue/green and the others:
www.poultry.allotment.org.uk/Chi....php -
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Re: Egg Hunts
Sun, March 30, 2008 - 3:44 PMThanks for that.
I have crossed some brown egg hens with a blue gene cockerel, and am waiting for the results!!
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Re: Egg Hunts
Sun, March 23, 2008 - 3:56 PMMe too. Water test is very good, I found 40 eggs last week.
If I were home more often, I think I'd keep them in the coop until 2 or 3 in the afternoon (after they lay) and then let them out for some running and scratching.
You can try outfitting the nest boxes with fake ceramic eggs from McMurray Hatchery or even golf balls. -
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Re: Egg Hunts
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 8:35 AMI have banties and they just don t know the meaning of laying boxes. I have Auracuna banties and one will actualy lay her eggs between the rocks and push rocks around them to hide the egg.
Even when they lay in the coop they still scratch nests in the straw to hide them/ hide them in every little bit of straw that falls out of the nest onto the ground,
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Re: Egg Hunts
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 12:36 PMwhat i've read is that putting a fake egg in their nest box will encourage them to continue to lay there. (the idea is that they see the egg and think it must be a "safe" place for eggs, since their is already one there.)
we're just lucky i guess. our chickens lay either in the coop or in one little nest they found for themselves that's actually closer to the house. i keep meaning to put a dummy egg in both places, but i haven't done it yet and they don't seem to mind.
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Re: Egg Hunts
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 11:26 PMExcuse me for not really knowing where to reply to the post... but thanks for all the help especially the water test! my girls are rhode island reds and some buff mixes. One thing i've tried that works is to use a sharpie and draw a circle around one egg and leave it in the nest. every week or so trade out the sacrificed egg with another egg with a circle drawn on it. that way there's always an egg in the nest to encourage more laying, and you know which one it is. -
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Re: Egg Hunts
Fri, March 28, 2008 - 3:09 PMor just use a plastic easter egg. or golf ball. i've even heard of people using a white rock. the hens really don't seem to be all that smart about what it is, as long as its about the size of an egg...
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