Sarahh_Janeyy
Songster
I have a flock of 8 hens, they turned one in February. A few months ago, we tried to switch out a huge bulky nest box I made for a Hengear roll away box - we had 1 especially broody hen and I had read that the wire bottom of the box would discourage broodiness. It worked, but they hated this box, they liked to get comfy and nest on a nest pad, so the only way to get them to use this box was to put a nest pad in it... Which kinda made the roll away useless. Anyway, when we changed their box, my cream legbar decided she was not down with that, and started laying in the coop. I started locking her out until night time, to encourage laying in the new box. That worked for a little while, but she wasn't happy about it. Until one day I made an oppsie and forgot to open the coop again before it got dark, and then it rained- and well, it was a bad time all around. After that, I decided to put their old bulky box back... So I did, and the girls were pretty happy to go back to laying there. But my cream legbar was NOT. Since spring rolled around, she'll check out the nest box, decide she doesn't want to lay there, and go back and forth into/out of coop and scratch around, make weird noises, and generally sound/act nervous/frantic. Any ideas? None of the other chickens do this. They have all completely abandoned the Hengear nest box (anyone wanna buy one? Buy something expensive and chickens will show you exactly how much your money is worth.. amirite?) and they are all using the bulky box I made again.. Aside from the Legbar. She's still laying, but always in the coop, and occasionally the egg(s) get buried in the litter and don't resurface until one of the hens digs it up. She just seems so unhappy. Any ideas?
