I learned more in the first 4 minutes of this video than 3 other videos combined (just an estimate). This man is an excellent communicator. Very good video. Thank you from east Texas. :)
Excellent video. I find that golf balls in the nesting boxes helped with the new chickens, instead of ceramic eggs. Once they are used to the routine, I can go play a quick 9
Just wanted to say Thank you for a Very well done video and for taking your time to make it for us out here. I will never understand why anyone would thumbs down someone who is, as I stated prior , taking their time to try to help others. You and yours take care and God bless. Thumbs Up here.
Another easy and cheap tip for thin egg shells: when you use the eggs for cooking, keep the shells, let them dry out, crunch them up into tiny pieces, and add it to their chicken feed. Great source of calcium!
I discovered that feeding chickens egg shells can actually introduce egg eating. For years I cooked the shells in the oven to make sure the chickens didn't recognize the eggs. One day the vet was here for a cow, saw thathat I was feeding the cooked shells to my hens. He said, you have any egg eaters? I said, once in a while. He said, you might want to reconsider feeding shells. I stopped the practice and I haven't had an egg eater since. Just FYI
a great video! Thanks for posting. Another helpful hint. Make sure your hens have access to free choise grit. If they don't get enough rocks in their gizzard they can become malnourished and will start eating eggs. (Learned from experience!)
When my hens start laying "poopy" eggs, I know there is a good chance that they may have parasites, so I used to feed them some food grade diatomaceous earth for a few days and that would solve the problem. Now I routinely mix a little diatomaceous earth in their feed and don't get any dirty eggs. There is a huge difference between food grade and industrial grade diatomaceous earth so always double check that you are purchasing the correct one.
It is nice to have the hard wooden or ceramic eggs laying around for if ever your chickens start to eat the eggs. Putting some of those in the nest works great for that occasion as often times it is extremely hard to narrow down the culprit.
I was just gonna comment that same thing. When I’ve had egg eaters I put in ceramic eggs then clear out the normal eggs often. It’s worked both times I did it. I also have had a laugh at the thought of a chicken banging it’s head against an egg that just won’t break.
The roosting bars higher than the nesting boxes is true. I have (1) at 24",(1) at 36" and (1) at 48". All 10 want to be on the 48" roost. My problem is getting my girls to lay in the nesting boxes. I find eggs on the floor of the coop. I know my boxes are not too high(24") because they have no problem getting up to the 24" roosting bar. I may try installing a ladder up to the nesting boxes. I have the golf balls and wooden egg already in there. Let me know your thoughts.
We've done all of the things you mentioned and still have always had at least one chicken in a flock become an egg eater, so we now use roll out trays, made very simply and easily with a board angled downwards and a little catch box that they can't access lined with something cushioned so the eggs don't break. Great video and tips! ❤️💛💜
@@jdcamp528 We actually decided not to do the roll outs because we live in a high predator area and that's a weak spot. I'm afraid I don't have any pics of our old setup at our old house, I'm not much of one to take a lot of photos. I do, however, have a coop tour video up on my channel of our current setup that's still in progress, but with normal nest boxes.
Thank you for your calm voice and very good information. We have had chickens most of our 56 years of marriage, and today we will move our three oldest hens in with our pullets who are now one year old. We are in Texas, keep our birds on cattle panel hoops with tarps over 2/3 of each pen. My husband raises Nankin Bantams. He recently purchased a small incubator and we filled it twice. So he has two batches of babies, thus the need for more space for them, and three old hens in one big pen is silly. Plus he has two broody little hens and one set of eggs should hatch later this week. So today we must move the little roosters, as I'm afraid they could kill the hatching babies. I do have one tip for those who have snakes like we do. Buy bird netting that is supposed to keep the birds from pecking and eating your fruit. It is avaliable at Walmart, Tractor Supply as well as on line. I purchase the 14' x14' piece and cut it into strips about 4'-5' wide by the 14' length. Then I put it around the bottom of our chicken pens, (as well as my raised garden beds.) Using zip ties to keep it in place. Last summer we had six copperheads and one smaller chicken snake meet their demise in the netting. Already this year two copperhead have been caught! My grand daughter also told me that copperheads smell like dog poop. I did not know that! She said that every time my son runs over one on the kaliche road, he gets out to be sure it is dead. If he is wearing his boots, he will step on its head...but when he gets back in the vehicle...the smell is just like he stepped in dog poop. Good to know...Already saved me two times.
Great info! I built a nest box shelf unit just like this with 24 nest boxes. I had a variety of laying hens. All large breed. The heavier girls liked the lower boxes and the flightier girls liked the high boxes. We used pine shavings instead of straw and added a 4” strip of wood on the outside of the nest box row to hold the nest material in. That helps keep the nest cushion under the hen where the egg is laid. Less chance of broken eggs falling onto the hard wood surface. The roost area is the most important with enough room for all the girls and roosters. And they like to sleep near their good friends. ❤️🐓👍
The eggs are expensive at TSC I went through my Easter eggs and dug the white ones out put sand in them and glued them shut. I didn't have golf balls lol
What kind of chicken lays those beautiful blue and other color eggs. I just love that. Totally enjoyed your tips, and thank you for teaching how to train a rooster not to attack me It has worked for us.
We don’t mix the calcium in with the chickens food we just put a bowl of the calcium chips out next to the food in their hands know when they need it because they’ll go over and eat it themselves you don’t have to be concerned about feeding the chickens how my going to feed each chicken so many ounces of this over a months time or don’t worry about any of that just put it out in a bowl and the chickens are really much smarter than most humans!❤️🇺🇸
A good roosting idea, for lower amounts of chickens, is an old wooden ladder. Like a step ladder with 4-6 steps on it or something, Nothing to build then :) You will get those chicks that like lower rungs, and some that wanna be on top.
I was having problems with my girls wanting to nest in the boxes when they were first introduced because the older hens and rooster wouldn’t let them on the top roost. I added a hinged door on the nesting boxes and would close it in the evening after they had laid their eggs and then opened it when. I opened their coop in the morning. After a couple of weeks they got in the habit of sleeping on the lower roosts and I now just keep the hinged door open until I have that problem again with New chickens being introduced.
A golf ball works well too! :D If I find broken, cracked eggs, I give them to my dogs. I give my chickens an afternoon snack from TS organic mixes or the Golden Glaze mix at Rural King -- I like the Golden Glaze because it DOES have oyster shell bits in the mix.
Thanks. I have 4 chickens the 🦊 got me down from 8. Thinking about getting some new ones. I am only getting 1egg in the nesting box and often find 1under a really hard to reach bush. I live in Ireland .
I just got my hands on some Icelandic chicks. Excited to swap out my old mixed flock with the new flock. Fortunately there is a private seller 6 hrs from our area who strictly deals with Icelandic landrace chickens and sheep only. Beautiful animals. Greetings from United States!
Good video thanks for the info. I was told one of the purposes of the ceramic eggs is to train young inquisitive chickens, that peck at everything, if they peck at an egg it only causes headaches. I just have one set that I put out in a box a week or two before they start laying. After they investigate them and peck at them they lose interest in pecking at an egg. So far I have not had a problem with my chicken trying to eat or peck their eggs.... knock on wood!
I noticed that you are using the same or similar litter on the floor as you are using in the nest boxes. We raised chickens for about 30 + yrs. The best practice for us was to not use the same material for both. Wood chips seemed to be the best for the floor as it is easy to turn for the chickens and composts readily. Straw worked best for the nests because it is easier to keep clean on a daily or weekly basis. It is confusing to the birds to use the same material in the nests as the floor. Since our operation was somewhat commercial, 200 layers, we kept them somewhat contained to avoid the raccoon, opossums, minks and coyotes. Let alone all the stray dogs people let run loose in the town we lived next to. We used a 5 to 1 ratio for the nest boxes and that seemed to work well. We provided cherry stone for grit in a creep feeder and oyster shell for calcium supplement. Since we lived next to the grain elevator I didn't have to keep great quantities of bedding material on hand. We also had horses, so we had plenty of wood chips on hand. That seems to work best for their bedding also. Good luck with your operation. I enjoyed your video and thought informative. .
That's a hoot; mustard vs yolk ... Would love to see that reaction on a video, but some whackamole would be offended and fuss at us, right? Just got six aquila chicks and crushing YT vids for knowledge... TYVM for your input ...
I have been feeding a mix of egg layer feed and keep my egg shell to feed the chickens and I have had almost no problem with the thin eggs. I have done this since I was young and now at 53 it still works.I have never feed any oyster shells put I hear from other's that do.
Thanks alot for sharing your experience . I have some questions please , 1- You said you've put real eggs in the nesting boxes , aren't chickens when they lay eggs sit on it and don't lay again until chicks come out ? They don't know their eggs are fertilized or not , aren't they ? So , will they do that with the egg you put in the nest ? 2 - I have a rooster with my chickens , but they are all chicks right now , is there a certain age for mating which I should keep the rooster away from encountering the chickens before it ? as they complete their growing ?? Thanks
An argument for ceramic eggs is it is a strong deterrent for chickens that want to eat eggs unless the chicken in question is a 1/2 wood pecker hybrid. We fed our chickens crushed egg shells to supplement crushed oyster shells for calcium. That was over 55 years ago and calcium was not added to chicken feed that I knew of.
I've noticed when young hens are about to start laying they will often get into the laying boxes and poop. We have to be extra careful during those times to watch the boxes and change the shavings.
Connor Danielson yes ok. We should be getting eggs any time now. I know not to wash them so you can keep them out and not refrigerate but just wanted to make sure before you crack and eat them you are supposed to rinse them off. Thank you
Very informative video. Do you have any information on taking egg shells and crushing them to a powder and adding that to the feed for good thick egg shells?
I do that. I keep the shells in an ice cream bucket in my kitchen closet. I don't rinse them first and it's amazing that I have never had any odor with this. When my bucket is full , I lay the shells out on a large pan with sides(a jelly roll pan works great) and bake them at 225 for an hour or so to kill any germs. I then run them through my food processor, but not too finely or I have a bunch of dust floating around. I sprinkle about a heaped Tablespoon every so often on the the chickens food. My son asked me to back off on the calcium though cuz the shells, in his opinion, where too hard.
I use hay (coastal burmuda) as well, especially because it is much cheaper in my neck of the woods. One of my neighbors uses shredded paper he gets free from work and he likes that.
Great information, I've had chickens for years and just by accident I've been doing almost everything you're saying here, although I'm going to raise some of the roosts and lower some of the nests. Also I make my nests put of old milk crates and I tip them 1.5 inches from back to front, them catch the eggs with a chicken wire trough to catch them and keep em away from the hen peckers. Some higher ranking hens like to break the lower ranking hens eggs.
I have 1 hen who started laying thin eggs. All my others ( 12)are strong good shells. But this one lays thin soft shells and has taken up eating the eggs. I provide a TSC layer food , and keep the feeder topped off. I have changed feed, started with organic, and then higher protein for mixed birds etc, and it doesn’t seem to make any difference Also I provide oyster shells as well as there own shells which I clean, bake on a low temp for an hour and crush up. So I’m doing everything you have suggested. My hens also free range most of the day. How do I break this hen from eating her eggs, and make sure the shells are hard enough? Any other suggestions?
We got 4 rhode island reds the in 3 weeks we had collected almost a doz..they were newly laying.. Then we went to the feed store and they that day had white chickens for a good price ready to lay so we got 2 and brought them home..get them separate for a day..they were about the same size so put together and they werent a problem.. Now however its been two weeks.. We are getting white eggs. But the brown eggs have stopped! We got laying mash, the corn treats feed and they had been eating the pellets. Any ideas? We are changing the type of nesting box soon .
easy coop ------used 18 wheeler trailers ---nice hardwood floors clean easily and perches go in at 7 feet so you can walk under to feed and water and clean-----cracked eggs?? boil them and feed them back to the chickens
Do you ever have a problem with the feed clumping in your auto-feeders with the high Michigan humidity? Also, do you give your chickens diatanacious earth for worms and mites?
Generally I provide a Sandy place for them to bath in which helps with mites, I have not done and diatamatious earth for them but may this spring. No issues with clumping, they eat through it pretty quick
SSLFamilyDad I've heard that diatanacious earth really works, but, I haven't tried it. Please let us know what you think if you do try it. Thanks for the feeder info. 😁
With my chicken I actually cover and leave a tiny entry for my laying spot. I keep the area darker coz I want then to hatch. They sit on eggs 10 plus eggs, randomly.
Can you keep used egg shells and grind them to a powder to use as a calcium supplement? That would be a frugal source of the calcium they need wouldn't it.
You dont need to put them in the oven for long, we just save our eggshells until we have a bunch of them and when my girlfriend is baking something, when she turns off the oven she puts the eggshells in the oven until it has cooled off, crush and mix with their kitchen scraps...
Dave's Journey dust the corners of coop and nesting boxes with diatomaceous earth. You can put some in their sandbox with a cup or two of cool wood ash, too. It’s basically flea powder
I have 5 speckled Sussex hens, they are 7 months old & they have not started laying yet. Our weather has started getting cooler, but my other hens , different breeds, are laying. Any help with this issue would be appreciated
Please someone help! In the UK.. the small ready made coop has the nesting box and perches at the same height and guess where they sleep? I end up having to clean the poop out of the boxes every day! 5 chickens..6 nesting boxes..they share when they sleep.. how can i sort this out since they are due to lay in 1 month?
Close off access to the nest boxes after egg laying/collection and before evening when they start to roost. They'll have no choice but to roost on the roost.
i dont think my birds are gettig ito my top row of nest boxes, they use the lower row. ( i have "little" giant plastic" boxes) how high is to high for the birds to get into. ANd will they use a ramp to get into the upper nests?
We have two rooster little miniature Bantam roosters that we got a month or so after we got all our other chicks and no matter how we try I just don’t get along we tried to put them in the coop and the big chickens gang up on him two or three get on him and pound on him and so we keep them in a separate little coop on the porch because they’re just great little characters to have around. Any suggestions as to how I can integrate them into the coop with the rest of the girls? They are the only roosters I have and we originally thought because they were roosters why they would be OK then run the show but they get in there and boy do they get their asses kicked🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴
Try placing them in the coop on the roost at night, in the dark. Chickens are pretty stupid that way. If they wake up and they're there, they'll think they've always been there. This is how I always introduce new birds to the flock and have never had an issue. Banties can also be quite plucky and if they're considerably smaller than the other birds, the other birds will definitely "put them in their place" which can sometimes be contrary to the Banty personality. If that is the case, you may just have to keep them separate if you really want to keep them.
I have to disagree with you on the ceramic eggs; a marked ceramic egg is a lot more convenient than having to mark a fresh egg and leave it in the nest every day. Golf balls are great, too.
It's something you usually get in younger birds. Sometime you get an egg forming prematurely so it is low volume and probably has no yolk. But there is something in the membrane so a shell forms. Whether the solution involves more growth, diet or some other environmental changes it usually resolves itself in a few days. I've seen eggs from chickens where the egg was smaller than a robin's egg. You didn't say how small they were or if they were yolked. If they're a normal egg, but abnormally small I'd guess you have pullets who are laying early and aren't ready to produce full sized eggs yet. That might take longer than a week, but the eggs will get bigger over time. If it's happening in an older hen she may just be getting too old. That can happen starting as early as two years old depending on the breed or breeds if she's a hybrid.
I learned more in the first 4 minutes of this video than 3 other videos combined (just an estimate).
This man is an excellent communicator. Very good video. Thank you from east Texas. :)
Excellent video. I find that golf balls in the nesting boxes helped with the new chickens, instead of ceramic eggs. Once they are used to the routine, I can go play a quick 9
Just wanted to say Thank you for a Very well done video and for taking your time to make it for us out here. I will never understand why anyone would thumbs down someone who is, as I stated prior , taking their time to try to help others. You and yours take care and God bless. Thumbs Up here.
I totally agree.
Another easy and cheap tip for thin egg shells: when you use the eggs for cooking, keep the shells, let them dry out, crunch them up into tiny pieces, and add it to their chicken feed. Great source of calcium!
True! But never use the shells from the chickens that you don't own, or they might contract diseases.
I discovered that feeding chickens egg shells can actually introduce egg eating. For years I cooked the shells in the oven to make sure the chickens didn't recognize the eggs. One day the vet was here for a cow, saw thathat I was feeding the cooked shells to my hens. He said, you have any egg eaters? I said, once in a while. He said, you might want to reconsider feeding shells. I stopped the practice and I haven't had an egg eater since. Just FYI
@@peggysuespencer9414 If you grind them to a powder, in a blender or food processor, they won’t be able to recognize them.
@@markom250 ov j'y no I y up 0
@@samistephen4456pulverized eggs also are better to use in compost, worm bins, etc. The dust makes the calcium more bioavailable.
I've never heard of or thought about having the nest boxes lower than the roosts! We will be sure to raise our chicken roost bars. Thanks!
Thanks! Getting my first chickens today!!!
I liked your prayer.. I painted a chicken prayer for my new henhouse.. thank you for the education
Thanks for the chicken nesting box suggestions!
a great video! Thanks for posting. Another helpful hint. Make sure your hens have access to free choise grit. If they don't get enough rocks in their gizzard they can become malnourished and will start eating eggs. (Learned from experience!)
When my hens start laying "poopy" eggs, I know there is a good chance that they may have parasites, so I used to feed them some food grade diatomaceous earth for a few days and that would solve the problem. Now I routinely mix a little diatomaceous earth in their feed and don't get any dirty eggs. There is a huge difference between food grade and industrial grade diatomaceous earth so always double check that you are purchasing the correct one.
SO WHICH IS BETTER FOOD GRADE OR INDUSTRIAL, SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS MY KEY IS STUCK
@@3nomadswithwhiskers393 food grade
Wow, awesome tip. How often? Thanks! Just getting started with some chickens here...
It is nice to have the hard wooden or ceramic eggs laying around for if ever your chickens start to eat the eggs. Putting some of those in the nest works great for that occasion as often times it is extremely hard to narrow down the culprit.
I was just gonna comment that same thing. When I’ve had egg eaters I put in ceramic eggs then clear out the normal eggs often. It’s worked both times I did it. I also have had a laugh at the thought of a chicken banging it’s head against an egg that just won’t break.
@@dallinchecketts3786 Iv heard wooden eggs work too.
Great information for me. I'm getting a half dozen chickens within the next 2 days and just finishing up my coop. Thanks so much.
I loved your video! The verse at the end was great too!!!
What a sweet guy, nice explanations and informative to the point video.
The roosting bars higher than the nesting boxes is true. I have (1) at 24",(1) at 36" and (1) at 48". All 10 want to be on the 48" roost. My problem is getting my girls to lay in the nesting boxes. I find eggs on the floor of the coop. I know my boxes are not too high(24") because they have no problem getting up to the 24" roosting bar. I may try installing a ladder up to the nesting boxes. I have the golf balls and wooden egg already in there. Let me know your thoughts.
We've done all of the things you mentioned and still have always had at least one chicken in a flock become an egg eater, so we now use roll out trays, made very simply and easily with a board angled downwards and a little catch box that they can't access lined with something cushioned so the eggs don't break. Great video and tips! ❤️💛💜
Picture please
@@jdcamp528 We actually decided not to do the roll outs because we live in a high predator area and that's a weak spot. I'm afraid I don't have any pics of our old setup at our old house, I'm not much of one to take a lot of photos. I do, however, have a coop tour video up on my channel of our current setup that's still in progress, but with normal nest boxes.
Have egg roll boxes but one chicken gets in the box with other chickens and eats her egg. What can I do other than chicken soup.
Very helpful mate, thank you from rural Australia.
Thank you for your calm voice and very good information. We have had chickens most of our 56 years of marriage, and today we will move our three oldest hens in with our pullets who are now one year old. We are in Texas, keep our birds on cattle panel hoops with tarps over 2/3 of each pen. My husband raises Nankin Bantams. He recently purchased a small incubator and we filled it twice. So he has two batches of babies, thus the need for more space for them, and three old hens in one big pen is silly. Plus he has two broody little hens and one set of eggs should hatch later this week. So today we must move the little roosters, as I'm afraid they could kill the hatching babies.
I do have one tip for those who have snakes like we do. Buy bird netting that is supposed to keep the birds from pecking and eating your fruit. It is avaliable at Walmart, Tractor Supply as well as on line. I purchase the 14' x14' piece and cut it into strips about 4'-5' wide by the 14' length. Then I put it around the bottom of our chicken pens, (as well as my raised garden beds.) Using zip ties to keep it in place. Last summer we had six copperheads and one smaller chicken snake meet their demise in the netting. Already this year two copperhead have been caught!
My grand daughter also told me that copperheads smell like dog poop. I did not know that! She said that every time my son runs over one on the kaliche road, he gets out to be sure it is dead. If he is wearing his boots, he will step on its head...but when he gets back in the vehicle...the smell is just like he stepped in dog poop. Good to know...Already saved me two times.
We are just getting started. We purchased our chicks from Tractor Supply about a week ago
Me to
Thank you for your information. Very helpful.
Thank you for freely sharing such valuable information.
Great info! I built a nest box shelf unit just like this with 24 nest boxes. I had a variety of laying hens. All large breed. The heavier girls liked the lower boxes and the flightier girls liked the high boxes. We used pine shavings instead of straw and added a 4” strip of wood on the outside of the nest box row to hold the nest material in. That helps keep the nest cushion under the hen where the egg is laid. Less chance of broken eggs falling onto the hard wood surface. The roost area is the most important with enough room for all the girls and roosters. And they like to sleep near their good friends. ❤️🐓👍
Very helpful video with some extremely good information.
We have also used big smooth eggish shaped rocks , ping pong balls and golf balls in nesting boxes to encourage them to lay eggs... Good Video...
The eggs are expensive at TSC I went through my Easter eggs and dug the white ones out put sand in them and glued them shut. I didn't have golf balls lol
I took a piece of scrap 2x2 and carved wooden eggs ...it works and I don't have to leave any eggs...just a thought....
What kind of chicken lays those beautiful blue and other color eggs. I just love that. Totally enjoyed your tips, and thank you for teaching how to train a rooster not to attack me It has worked for us.
Thank you just getting started.
Well done! I'm new at this. This video really helped me out.
We don’t mix the calcium in with the chickens food we just put a bowl of the calcium chips out next to the food in their hands know when they need it because they’ll go over and eat it themselves you don’t have to be concerned about feeding the chickens how my going to feed each chicken so many ounces of this over a months time or don’t worry about any of that just put it out in a bowl and the chickens are really much smarter than most humans!❤️🇺🇸
I most definitely appreciate all the information. Thanks!
Great video. I find I could have 100 nest boxes for 50 chickens and they will still always lay in the same box. 🤣
Need more hens🎉
A good roosting idea, for lower amounts of chickens, is an old wooden ladder. Like a step ladder with 4-6 steps on it or something, Nothing to build then :) You will get those chicks that like lower rungs, and some that wanna be on top.
I always leave a golf ball in my nest box. Don't have to bother with picking up old eggs or marking new ones.
That's exactly what I do. It also prevents bad habit of egg eaters.
Yes, and the chickens that try to peck eggs won’t enjoy pecking the golf balls or porcelain eggs! That is the purpose of them.
I was having problems with my girls wanting to nest in the boxes when they were first introduced because the older hens and rooster wouldn’t let them on the top roost. I added a hinged door on the nesting boxes and would close it in the evening after they had laid their eggs and then opened it when. I opened their coop in the morning. After a couple of weeks they got in the habit of sleeping on the lower roosts and I now just keep the hinged door open until I have that problem again with New chickens being introduced.
A golf ball works well too! :D If I find broken, cracked eggs, I give them to my dogs. I give my chickens an afternoon snack from TS organic mixes or the Golden Glaze mix at Rural King -- I like the Golden Glaze because it DOES have oyster shell bits in the mix.
Thanks. I have 4 chickens the 🦊 got me down from 8. Thinking about getting some new ones. I am only getting 1egg in the nesting box and often find 1under a really hard to reach bush. I live in Ireland .
I just got my hands on some Icelandic chicks. Excited to swap out my old mixed flock with the new flock. Fortunately there is a private seller 6 hrs from our area who strictly deals with Icelandic landrace chickens and sheep only. Beautiful animals. Greetings from United States!
Good video thanks for the info. I was told one of the purposes of the ceramic eggs is to train young inquisitive chickens, that peck at everything, if they peck at an egg it only causes headaches. I just have one set that I put out in a box a week or two before they start laying. After they investigate them and peck at them they lose interest in pecking at an egg. So far I have not had a problem with my chicken trying to eat or peck their eggs.... knock on wood!
I use the ceramic eggs to discourage egg eating. The chicken will peck the egg and find no luck and stops eating eggs
I noticed that you are using the same or similar litter on the floor as you are using in the nest boxes. We raised chickens for about 30 + yrs. The best practice for us was to not use the same material for both. Wood chips seemed to be the best for the floor as it is easy to turn for the chickens and composts readily. Straw worked best for the nests because it is easier to keep clean on a daily or weekly basis. It is confusing to the birds to use the same material in the nests as the floor. Since our operation was somewhat commercial, 200 layers, we kept them somewhat contained to avoid the raccoon, opossums, minks and coyotes. Let alone all the stray dogs people let run loose in the town we lived next to. We used a 5 to 1 ratio for the nest boxes and that seemed to work well. We provided cherry stone for grit in a creep feeder and oyster shell for calcium supplement. Since we lived next to the grain elevator I didn't have to keep great quantities of bedding material on hand. We also had horses, so we had plenty of wood chips on hand. That seems to work best for their bedding also. Good luck with your operation. I enjoyed your video and thought informative.
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I had problems with chickens sleeping in nesting box and it was because their perch What is lower than the nesting box, thanks for the knowledge
Great video! Thank you so much! Newbies here...
Very informative video!! Loved it! Thanks for sharing!😊
Great information, thanks!
Thank you sir! Very helpful tips keep making videos.
Damn good video and helpful appreciate it. Do you have any videos for those auto feeders ?
Another trick I used to use to stop egg eating, was to place a half egg shell filled with mustard into the box, and that always worked too.
That's a hoot; mustard vs yolk ... Would love to see that reaction on a video, but some whackamole would be offended and fuss at us, right?
Just got six aquila chicks and crushing YT vids for knowledge... TYVM for your input ...
Thank you for all the tips. Glad I found this channel.
Thank you, I appreciate the information, well done.
Thanks for the tips!
Brilliant hugely informative and helpful
I have been feeding a mix of egg layer feed and keep my egg shell to feed the chickens and I have had almost no problem with the thin eggs. I have done this since I was young and now at 53 it still works.I have never feed any oyster shells put I hear from other's that do.
Thanks alot for sharing your experience .
I have some questions please ,
1- You said you've put real eggs in the nesting boxes , aren't chickens when they lay eggs sit on it and don't lay again until chicks come out ? They don't know their eggs are fertilized or not , aren't they ?
So , will they do that with the egg you put in the nest ?
2 - I have a rooster with my chickens , but they are all chicks right now , is there a certain age for mating which I should keep the rooster away from encountering the chickens before it ? as they complete their growing ??
Thanks
I heard that you can put a white golf ball in the nesting box to encourage them to use the nest. One thing you won't pick up a bad egg.
Very well done
Thank you you answered some questions for me
Thank you for such an informative and succinct video! I'm now subscribed!
One of the most informative videos I’ve seen, especially in this little bit of time. Thanks!
An argument for ceramic eggs is it is a strong deterrent for chickens that want to eat eggs unless the chicken in question is a 1/2 wood pecker hybrid. We fed our chickens crushed egg shells to supplement crushed oyster shells for calcium. That was over 55 years ago and calcium was not added to chicken feed that I knew of.
This was very helpful thank you!
very helpful, thank you so much
Spot on my good man
Thanks great info!
Love your video m8, so nice to see someone sharing what they’ve learned!
Good video, I recently had a hen start eating eggs and nothing, i mean nothing would remedy it. She's in the freezer now.
I've noticed when young hens are about to start laying they will often get into the laying boxes and poop. We have to be extra careful during those times to watch the boxes and change the shavings.
Interesting. I have 25 new hens that are just now coming in to laying. There is relief in sight that I won’t have as big of a mess? 😂
Very Nice, Thanks.
Good information. Thanks
Man youve come a long way. Great job.
Great advice. I see you're using the egg basket.
Lol, yup, found it!
good info thank you!
Great information, thank you
My chickens were laying eggs all over and I put golf balls in the nesting boxes and they started laying eggs in the boxes again
That is also a great way to go, they always will nest where there are eggs( or golf balls, lol)
Do you rinse the egg off before you crack them to eat? Not sure if at anytime you should rinse them to wash off any bacteria.
@@bridgetdonovan1680 we don't clean the eggs off till we eat them because of the good bacteria on them that keeps them good longer
Connor Danielson yes ok. We should be getting eggs any time now. I know not to wash them so you can keep them out and not refrigerate but just wanted to make sure before you crack and eat them you are supposed to rinse them off. Thank you
@@bridgetdonovan1680 your welcome me and my family love having farm fresh eggs.
Very informative video. Do you have any information on taking egg shells and crushing them to a powder and adding that to the feed for good thick egg shells?
I do that. I keep the shells in an ice cream bucket in my kitchen closet. I don't rinse them first and it's amazing that I have never had any odor with this. When my bucket is full , I lay the shells out on a large pan with sides(a jelly roll pan works great) and bake them at 225 for an hour or so to kill any germs. I then run them through my food processor, but not too finely or I have a bunch of dust floating around. I sprinkle about a heaped Tablespoon every so often on the the chickens food. My son asked me to back off on the calcium though cuz the shells, in his opinion, where too hard.
I prefer hay because straw is more resistant to water and can get messy. Hay will compost in time and stays drier on top. Just my preference :)
I use hay (coastal burmuda) as well, especially because it is much cheaper in my neck of the woods. One of my neighbors uses shredded paper he gets free from work and he likes that.
Great information, I've had chickens for years and just by accident I've been doing almost everything you're saying here, although I'm going to raise some of the roosts and lower some
of the nests.
Also I make my nests put of old milk crates and I tip them 1.5 inches from back to front, them catch the eggs with a chicken wire trough to catch them and keep em away from the hen peckers. Some higher ranking hens like to break the lower ranking hens eggs.
I have 1 hen who started laying thin eggs. All my others ( 12)are strong good shells. But this one lays thin soft shells and has taken up eating the eggs. I provide a TSC layer food , and keep the feeder topped off. I have changed feed, started with organic, and then higher protein for mixed birds etc, and it doesn’t seem to make any difference
Also I provide oyster shells as well as there own shells which I clean, bake on a low temp for an hour and crush up. So I’m doing everything you have suggested. My hens also free range most of the day. How do I break this hen from eating her eggs, and make sure the shells are hard enough? Any other suggestions?
Roll away boxes or eat her 😂😂
We got 4 rhode island reds the in 3 weeks we had collected almost a doz..they were newly laying..
Then we went to the feed store and they that day had white chickens for a good price ready to lay so we got 2 and brought them home..get them separate for a day..they were about the same size so put together and they werent a problem..
Now however its been two weeks..
We are getting white eggs. But the brown eggs have stopped!
We got laying mash, the corn treats feed and they had been eating the pellets.
Any ideas?
We are changing the type of nesting box soon
.
easy coop ------used 18 wheeler trailers ---nice hardwood floors clean easily and perches go in at 7 feet so you can walk under to feed and water and clean-----cracked eggs?? boil them and feed them back to the chickens
Very good
Good info.....thanks.
Do you ever have a problem with the feed clumping in your auto-feeders with the high Michigan humidity?
Also, do you give your chickens diatanacious earth for worms and mites?
Generally I provide a Sandy place for them to bath in which helps with mites, I have not done and diatamatious earth for them but may this spring. No issues with clumping, they eat through it pretty quick
SSLFamilyDad I've heard that diatanacious earth really works, but, I haven't tried it. Please let us know what you think if you do try it. Thanks for the feeder info. 😁
I'm in Ravenna Mi .. 😉 glad to see Michiganders here lol
Thanks a lot of go information thanks
Nice one
Thanks for sharing. God Bless
With my chicken I actually cover and leave a tiny entry for my laying spot. I keep the area darker coz I want then to hatch. They sit on eggs 10 plus eggs, randomly.
Can you keep used egg shells and grind them to a powder to use as a calcium supplement? That would be a frugal source of the calcium they need wouldn't it.
Yes you can.
Some people actually bake theirs in the oven. 200 for 10-15 minuets. Then grind them.
Yep. Done this with mind since they were babies.
You dont need to put them in the oven for long, we just save our eggshells until we have a bunch of them and when my girlfriend is baking something, when she turns off the oven she puts the eggshells in the oven until it has cooled off, crush and mix with their kitchen scraps...
If chickens are eating eggs, they need more protein in their diet. Add another brand of feed or some whole grain mix.
+calcium 😊
Once you eat your eggs can the shell be added back into feed?
Yes but make sure you crush them up or even bake them first and then crush them up.
When i first started with my first chickens, I used golf balls to encourage them to lay in the nest box.
I have a problem. My coop is inside a very large run... for some reason my chickens hate my nesting boxes? Would you know why?
Have you ever had issues with mites? If so, how do you handle them?
Dave's Journey dust the corners of coop and nesting boxes with diatomaceous earth. You can put some in their sandbox with a cup or two of cool wood ash, too. It’s basically flea powder
I have 5 speckled Sussex hens, they are 7 months old & they have not started laying yet. Our weather has started getting cooler, but my other hens , different breeds, are laying. Any help with this issue would be appreciated
Please someone help! In the UK.. the small ready made coop has the nesting box and perches at the same height and guess where they sleep? I end up having to clean the poop out of the boxes every day! 5 chickens..6 nesting boxes..they share when they sleep.. how can i sort this out since they are due to lay in 1 month?
Close off access to the nest boxes after egg laying/collection and before evening when they start to roost. They'll have no choice but to roost on the roost.
i dont think my birds are gettig ito my top row of nest boxes, they use the lower row. ( i have "little" giant plastic" boxes) how high is to high for the birds to get into. ANd will they use a ramp to get into the upper nests?
We have two rooster little miniature Bantam roosters that we got a month or so after we got all our other chicks and no matter how we try I just don’t get along we tried to put them in the coop and the big chickens gang up on him two or three get on him and pound on him and so we keep them in a separate little coop on the porch because they’re just great little characters to have around. Any suggestions as to how I can integrate them into the coop with the rest of the girls? They are the only roosters I have and we originally thought because they were roosters why they would be OK then run the show but they get in there and boy do they get their asses kicked🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴
Try placing them in the coop on the roost at night, in the dark. Chickens are pretty stupid that way. If they wake up and they're there, they'll think they've always been there. This is how I always introduce new birds to the flock and have never had an issue. Banties can also be quite plucky and if they're considerably smaller than the other birds, the other birds will definitely "put them in their place" which can sometimes be contrary to the Banty personality. If that is the case, you may just have to keep them separate if you really want to keep them.
I have to disagree with you on the ceramic eggs; a marked ceramic egg is a lot more convenient than having to mark a fresh egg and leave it in the nest every day. Golf balls are great, too.
One of my chickens have started laying a very small egg. I’m Not, sure what the deal is. Any advice? They all eat the same things.
Sara Newsome my chickens have that safe problem
It's something you usually get in younger birds. Sometime you get an egg forming prematurely so it is low volume and probably has no yolk. But there is something in the membrane so a shell forms. Whether the solution involves more growth, diet or some other environmental changes it usually resolves itself in a few days.
I've seen eggs from chickens where the egg was smaller than a robin's egg. You didn't say how small they were or if they were yolked. If they're a normal egg, but abnormally small I'd guess you have pullets who are laying early and aren't ready to produce full sized eggs yet. That might take longer than a week, but the eggs will get bigger over time. If it's happening in an older hen she may just be getting too old. That can happen starting as early as two years old depending on the breed or breeds if she's a hybrid.
Our coop has a dirt floor so the boxes get really nasty during heavy rains. Just a fact of life and we just change out the shavings daily.
If you add a good layer of sand, it will help the water drain away :)
Thanks
Does feeding egg shells to the hens lead to them eating eggs?
Not if they are crushed