My chickens won’t lay in the nesting box

My chickens are brats.

They have this spacious fancy chicken coop and run, they get plenty of free-range time to forage for bugs and worms, they are fed Scratch and Peck Organic Non-GMO feed and they get treats here and there. They have it all, and still, they won’t lay in the nesting box.

They lay next to the nesting box, under the nesting box and in the corners of the coop. It baffles me.

Last summer, I used ceramic eggs, which seemed to encourage the Americaunas and a Welsummer to lay in the box, but the others were still choosing to go rogue.

Then shortly after adopting our Silkie, Lady Rose, the little white fur ball went broody. In the nesting box, on top of the ceramic eggs. If I moved her off the eggs, she would just go right back. Poor girl, winter was setting in and she just wanted to be a momma. I eventually had to just remove the ceramic eggs because she just would have sat on them forever, refusing to eat or drink while waiting for them to hatch.

Now that the girls are laying again, its like a free for all in that coop and I need to find order.

Our YouTube video shows where they are laying as well as our setup. We are going to make some changes this weekend, but I don’t want to make too many changes…because, well….chickens don’t like change.

We are looking for advice if anyone has it to offer, but in the meantime we’ll just continue to try to figure this out.