It is spring time and that means it's time to move 1 group of chickens out of the greenhouse to a temporary coop until the pastures are dry enough to pasture the hens. 88 ten month old hens trained and laying beautifully in their greenhouse nest boxes (which were set up in a single row), were moved to a new coop and new configuration of nest boxes. We recorded what happened each day in the new set up. (When you make changes in a chicken's life, their cycles and habits can temporarily get messed up.)
Large nest box in the pictures below.
After the move to the new coop, this is what happened.
Day 1- 13 Floor Eggs (The remainder of their eggs for the day were in the double stacked nest boxes.)
Day 2 - 16 Floor Eggs
Day 3 - 5 Floor Eggs
Day 4 - 3 Floor Eggs
Day 5 - 3 Floor Eggs (Total eggs collected for the day - 78)
Day 6 - 0 Floor Eggs, Bottom Box - 8 more eggs than top box (On this day, we started recording the number of eggs collected in the top and bottom level of boxes.)
Day 7 - 1 Floor Egg, Bottom Box - 8 more eggs than top box
Day 8 - 2 Floor Eggs, Bottom Box - 4 more eggs than top box
Day 9 - 2 Floor Eggs, Top Box - 1 more egg than bottom box
Day 10 - 1 Floor Egg, Bottom Box - 2 more eggs than top box
Day 11 - 0 Floor Eggs, Bottom Box - 3 more eggs than top box
The move was a success! The girls did an excellent job transitioning. In this set up, we would allow up to 100 to 120 hens. It just so happened we only had 88 hens in this group.
