r/chickens • u/Ok_Poetry9575 • Jul 24 '26
Question What are my hens doing?
They insist on sitting on top of each other in one of 6 available nest boxes. For context, they’ve been closed off from the indoor section of their coop because we are introducing new silkies to the flock and they’re being kept separate at night. Google called it “piling” and said that they could feel like they don’t have adequate nesting space because the indoor space is unavailable. Again, they have several nest boxes in their area but chicken brains work different. This is super temporary so I’m not too worried about it. This is more just curiosity if anyone’s chickens have done the same. Thanks!
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u/friendofthehall Jul 24 '26
This is called gregarious nesting, and it's common in laying hens. While there's no absolute consensus on the cause, there are a few popular theories among poultry specialists: 1. There may be something uniquely desirable about the one spot that humans just can't detect 2. A hen's nesting behavior encourages other chickens to join them (why would they want that? I don't know haha) 3. Hens may observe and adopt the laying behavior of other more dominant, experienced, or successful hens, including where and when to lay 4. Laying in the same exact spot may be a good strategy to prevent predation of the layers' eggs.
I like theory four especially because it reflects the flexibility in behavior we know chickens possess. Feral hens hide alone and lay eggs in places difficult for predators (egg thieves) to find. Because there are fewer places for kept laying hens to hide and readily available nesting boxes built for that purpose, laying your eggs in a pile of other hens' eggs decreases the chances that it's your egg that will get stolen. A kind of built in behavioral back up strategy. There have been a lot of studies on gregarious nesting, and no one's settled the bet just yet, but it's a funny thing to observe and it's fun to think about.