Help!

[pinkhousesarebest]

I have just come home after two nights away and leaving my four, very settled chickens with my husband. One chicken is egg bound and has just had a vet visit/ injection. She is thankfully much better today. But they haven’t laid an egg in their nest boxes since I went away and I have just found a nest of eggs in the vegetable patch.
I poo pick every day and although dh isn’t that conscientious, the hen house is clean. What could have provoked this? Surely not my absence - could the fact that the chicken was not well make the others abandon their nesting site? Am perplexed. Such intriguing creatures.

Highly likely red mite.
Far far worse in really hot weather and the hens refuse to use the nest boxes and sit outside the house to sleep.
Check at night and look for 1000s of little crawling mites -they hide during the day
House will need to be thoroughly cleaned and sprayed weekly
Ive also got something for their water which deters the blighters from blood sucking.
Hens can die if untreated

Thank you - will check. Two have been at the vets- would she have noticed? They are back to laying in their boxes now.

No, there wouldn’t have been anything for the vet to see. They bite at night and go back to their hiding places, they don’t stay on the hen.

I’ve had hens that suddenly start a private nest like that, then all the others use it! It can be as simple as one of them being kept out of the boxes by a bossy one, she goes off to find another spot, and the others see her egg and go “oooooh, new nest, must be good, I’ll have a go too! As long as red mite is eliminated in the house as @Snoredoeurve said, and you remove the eggs from the outdoor nest and make it look less nest-like if they’ve been doing a bit of building, they’ll probably stick with the nestboxes. We’ve always gone searching if one of the hens seems to go off lay, because sometimes they haven’t, they’ve just found a nice alfresco laying spot! One of mine used to pick the most bonkers places to lay, it was so funny.

Why were they at the vet?
They may look pale but thats in the later stages when they become anaemic.
Just to say for anyone with Red mite we got some drops to put in their water that stops the mites and its brilliant!

Red Stop Solution

One was egg bound, the other was lame.
Thank you for the Red Mite tip. It’s super hot here- temperatures hovering around 40 and during the day the henhouse gets hot. I am wondering is that why they pr fer to lay Alfresco.