The Hen Who Escapes the Coop Every Day to Lay Her Egg in the Flowerbed

We have a white Leghorn hen who flies out of the coop every morning, walks to the front of the house, climbs up into the flowerbed by our front door, and lays her egg.

Below, she has arrived from the backyard coop.

Next, she jumps up into the flowerbed to the place she has chosen.

She then crawls partway under the leaves of the irises to her slightly hidden spot.

She fluffs the small pile of hay that I put there for her after we had discovered that this is where she is laying her eggs. I figured if she is going to lay eggs there, she might as well have a decent nest.

She nestles down into a comfortable position.

A while later, she leaves, and there is her egg in the nest.

She returns to the coop and flies back in. We would have never known this was going on, except that there were not very many eggs in the coop, and I suspected that eggs were being laid elsewhere. I had been on the lookout for eggs for some time. Then, the other day, Paul spotted three eggs in this flowerbed nest. Aha! That's where she had been laying them. We were shocked to see that she had been doing that.

I suspect the reason she is leaving the coop to lay her egg is that, as a young hen, she feels too stressed to lay her egg among the others. There are plenty of places within the coop for her to privately lay an egg, but all the hens tend to favor one nest. They'll pick a spot for the day (often the same spot is used for many days, but sometimes it changes) and then take turns laying eggs there until nearly all the eggs are laid in one nest. Occasionally, a hen will lay an egg in another location, but for the most part, they all like to lay eggs in the same spot. 

We've had other hens who like to leave the coop to lay eggs. What worries us about it is that we have many predators around here, including bald eagles, owls, coyotes, and raccoons. The bald eagles are the most concerning, since they hunt during the day and have been known to scoop up chickens if there isn't a sufficient overhead barrier to prevent it. 

We will be making some changes inside the coop to create more desirable places to lay eggs, and once we do so, we'll also clip her wings. In the meantime, it has been rather adorable to see her doing this. She sometimes comes to the front door and "announces" her freshly laid egg by clucking really loudly. I'll then go outside, pick her up, and cuddle her for a moment before taking her back to the coop. What a sweet little hen she is.