Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Hi
I have 2 buff orpington hens - age unknown, I inherited them when we bought the house in Sept 2018. I added 3 light sussex late aug - now aged 6.5 /7 months old. I have been getting 1 egg every 1-3 days from the buffs until last week (when I was on holiday & my son was caring for our dogs & chickens) when the light sussex started to lay. Son was collecting between 0 - 3 eggs daily. The 3 sussex have been together at night on one roost, the 2 buffs together on the other roost.
Then on Sat, one of the buffs (Elvis #2 hen & bully & egg eater) , was in the nesting box at night, leaving #1 hen (Presley) on her own. My son, picked up Elvis and moved her onto the roost in her regular spot. Tonight when I went to close up for the night, Elvis was in the nesting box, & Presley was roosting with the sussexs. She was at the end of the roosting bar, not leaving any room for Elvis beside her. Since Elvis can be nasty I didn't want to force her between Presley & the sussexs.
Not sure what is happening, during the day all 5 hens are hanging out together for the most part. Only some chasing and half hearted pecking from Presley & Elvis.
Should I move all girls around to make room for Elvis & having Presley as the buffer between Elvis & the Sussexs. Or should I move Elvis & Presley to their old spot? Or should I leave them be and see if Elvis starts roosting with the others again? All look healthy & when I had them out for supervised free range time, they were eating and running around as normal.

Thanks in advance for your advice.
Celina

ps. The 3 Sussex have names but when I got them, I could only tell them apart by the tail feathers so, if I can't see the tails, they are the Sussex's or 3 amigos. Now I can tell Grace from the other two, but Priscilla & Lisa are still almost identical.

Some hens just find once it's cold that it's warmer in the nesting box.

I don't think its anything to fuss about. If she wont get off the nest in the daytime and quirrs and screams at you, she is going broody and wants to set eggs. It happens this time of year, but not usually til there is more light.

There is a lever adjustment for this kind of behavior. Lever A and lever B. I would suggest Lever B.

A couple of my girls will sleep at night in the nest boxes and then in a few days change their minds.

Lol sounds like womanfolk to me KB

Thanks everyone

During the day Elvis hangs out with the others, she goes into the nesting box to lay her egg or eat one that I haven't grabbed. Unfortunately the girls don't lay their eggs on any type of schedule so it's hit & miss on getting them before Elvis. To be fair, Elvis does not eat an egg every day, just when she feels like it.
I've included a picture of my "girls". From the right in the lead is Grace, followed by Lisa. In the front middle is Priscilla, behind her is Elvis, back of the tree is Presley.
I'll just monitor Elvis's behaviour and hope that she goes back to roosting with Presley.

OK the egg eating behaviour has to be stopped before she teaches everyone else to do it! Not kidding about this. I hope some others can help with that and chime in!

With eggeaters I find if I put in a nesting box a large marble egg,I picked them up in the dollar store, they peck at that thinking it's an egg , it hurts their beak and stops the behaviour. I usually just leave in the nest box as a reminder. You could also use a golf ball.

I use this same centre for breaking egg eaters .

kenya wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 18, 2019 11:14 am

With eggeaters I find if I put in a nesting box a large marble egg,I picked them up in the dollar store, they peck at that thinking it's an egg , it hurts their beak and stops the behaviour. I usually just leave in the nest box as a reminder. You could also use a golf ball.

I already have 2 golf balls in each nesting box - Elvis knows the difference. I'll try with a large marble egg, since it will probably be closer in size to the eggs that the older girls lay. Elvis hasn't eaten any of the new girls eggs, which are smaller than hers, so maybe the golf balls are working for those.