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Took me 8 months to figure out why my hens stopped laying in the coop
Back in March, three of my five hens suddenly stopped using the nesting boxes. They would lay eggs in the yard, under the porch, even in the compost pile. I checked for mites, adjusted the lighting, switched feed twice. Nothing worked. Finally last week I noticed the metal latch on the coop door was rattling in the wind. Turns out the noise scared them off the boxes every time it gusted. I wrapped a bit of duct tape around the latch to muffle it and within 3 days they were all back inside laying normally. Has anyone else had a weird noise or small change spook their girls out of the nesting boxes?
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felixh4523d ago
The rattling latch thing makes so much sense. I had something sort of like that with a gate, not the coop itself. My girls were fine in the boxes but they quit going out to the yard for like two weeks and I could not figure out why. Turned out the hinge on the back gate had rusted and it made this high squeak every time it moved, even a little. Drove them nuts. I oiled it one afternoon and by the next morning they were scratching around like nothing happened. It is wild how much a tiny sound bothers them when we barely even notice it.
On a side note your post made me think about how my old rooster used to do this low grumble whenever a plane flew over. None of the hens cared about planes, but if a hawk called from the treeline they all froze. Those birds hear stuff we flat out miss. Good catch on the duct tape, cheap fix for a big problem.
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