The Egg & I

My chickens needed a bit of convincing (or is it 'inspiration'?) with respects to egg-laying and the nest boxes. 

A few days ago, I installed these two nest boxes for them.

The next day, I found an egg on the floor of the coop. It's where I'd found the initial few eggs before the nests were up.

It was a tiny, little egg, too. 

The girls can't just leave eggs any ol' place. They need to use the nest boxes. I gave them a stern lecture that seemed to fall on deaf ears.  "What kind of mothers are you that you just drop your eggs any where it's convenient?" 

The old timers had wooden or ceramic eggs they'd put in the nest boxes to convince hens to go broody. Maybe it also works for teaching them to use nest boxes? 

Lacking fake eggs, I improvised and borrowed a couple of golf balls from G.W. (Don't worry, I took the ones that were all scuffed up anyway.)                                                         

The next morning, voila! Two eggs in the box right beside the golf balls.

I guess the chickens see those golf balls and think, "Oh, yeah. That's what those yellow boxes are for." Or is it "Fore!"?