Another Egloo question

[Lucylou]

I've looked on the Egloo sites I've found without much help, so I'm back with another question!! Hope someone can help.

I saw on the Egloo site that they seem to put bedding of some sort in the nesting box (I hadn't up to this point, did think it looked a bit mean though but thought that was what you did in the Egloo !) So I put Auboise in, nice & comfy & now my two hen pecked ones cosy up nicely to sleep in it & its a right old mess in the morning!

How do you dissuade them from doing this? Is there any way as there is no means of shutting it off from the rest of the coop.

 

[KittyKat]

Every evening, after they have gone to roost, pick them up and move them onto the perches. Don't use a light when you go to do this so that you don't wake them up too much. I heard it usually takes a few weeks of training, but my ex-battery hens took months to be trained out of sleeping in their nest boxes. (This is probably because they had never seen a perch before we got them.) I'm not sure how well it would work with Egloos though, as the next area is not separated from the sleeping area.

 

[Marigold]

Just block off the nestbox with a large plastic flower pot, so they can't get in there in the first place. Remember to remove it in the morning before they want to get in to lay their eggs. Usually, hens learn within a week to perch in the right place, though one of the design problems with
Omlet coops is that the nestboxes are at the same height as the perches. Hens like to perch at the highest point available, so in a coop with perches higher than nestboxes, the problem is less likely to occur, and probably easier to break if it does. Also of course, there aren't what I would call proper perches in Omlet coops. The sort of toast rack design doesn't really encourage the birds to, literally, 'get a grip'!

 

[chrismahon]

The Egloo coops are a good engineering concept, but the usual case of a design conceived without poultry keeping experience. This seems to be a very common problem Lucylou and the solution is always the same, as Marigold suggests. This gets the owners up in the morning early, to take the pot out before the hens lay on the floor -result, broken eggs. First choice for a roosting hen will always be the nest box as opposed to the 'toast rack'.

 

[Lucylou]

Thanks everyone, I'll try the flower pot!
The Egloo was a bit of an experiment, needed something instant & easy & this became available at the right time but might re-sell it as its not everything its 'cracked' up to be! I'll give it the winter then decide.