Short answer: Floor eggs in a Ghana layer house come from habit, not from bad hens. They start in the first weeks of lay, in dark corners, and at nests that are too high, too damp or too exposed, and they rise again in the heat. Fix the nest entrance, light and litter first, collect at least three times a day, and change one thing at a time while you count floor eggs against total eggs.
Key takeaways
- Floor eggs usually start in the first three weeks of lay, so train pullets early.
- Nests should be dim, dry and easy to reach, with the floor corners kept as bright as the feed alley.
- Lift squatting and broody hens into nests or crates for a few days at a time.
- Collect at least three times a day during lay, not once.
- Count floor eggs every day and change one thing at a time to see what works.
Six floor eggs a day, and what they really cost
On a house of 180 hens, six floor eggs a day sounds like nothing. It is 42 a week, and most of them arrive in the collection bucket cracked, dirty or both. A floor egg rarely makes a sale at full price. It either goes on the discard pile, or it is sold as a second at a discount to a buyer who has to be talked into it.
The cost is more than the eggs. A hen that lays on the floor has often been treading on loose litter, so the shell takes a knock. The egg picks up faeces and wet bedding. Someone has to wipe it, and wiping takes time that the crew does not have. Floor eggs also teach the flock to lay in the wrong place, which is how a small habit becomes a house-wide problem.
A floor-egg count belongs on the same sheet as the daily total. A rise from almost none to six a day in a week is rarely about the hens' temperament. It is usually about light, nests, or a change in the routine that a hen noticed before you did. Eggs that do come out of a floor corner need cleaning before sale, and our egg washing guide explains how to do it without shortening shelf life.
The first three weeks of lay decide the habit
Hens learn where to lay in their first few weeks. A pullet that lays her first egg in a floor corner, on a pile of litter or behind a feed bin will often go back there the next day. By the time you notice the floor eggs, the habit may be six weeks old, and it is far harder to undo than to prevent.
So the work starts well before the first egg. Put the nest boxes in the house at least two weeks before the pullets are due to lay. Shut the pop holes in the evening once the flock is roosting, so the birds learn where the nests are. Walk the house each morning in the first weeks, remove every floor egg and log it, and move any hen you find squatting on the floor into a nest.
The pullet that squats on the floor is the one to watch. Lift her into a nest in the afternoon and close the door for an hour. Repeat for a few days. Patience here saves months of floor eggs later. Our pullet rearing guide covers the weeks before lay in more detail, including the feed changes that matter.
If you are still choosing the flock, see our layer day-old chicks page, and place the order through the order form once you know how many birds the house will take.
Dark corners and bright nests: where the light falls
Hens choose a place to lay that feels private and dim. A bright nest in the middle of a sunlit house is less attractive than a shadowed corner under a window ledge or a dark gap by the wall. Walk the house at lay time and look at it the way a hen does. Where is the darkest, quietest spot out of the traffic? That is very often where the floor eggs come from.
Light is the real issue in many houses. A bulb that lights the feed alley well but leaves the nest row in shadow looks sensible to you, while the nests look wrong to a hen. The best nest is dim but not dark. Aim for a soft light level inside the nest so it looks private and safe, and keep the corners outside the nest as bright as the feed area. Changing a single bulb can clear a corner within a week. Our lighting programme guide sets out the hours and placement for each stage of lay.
A cheap check: stand inside the nest and look out. If you cannot see the feeder or the drinker from there, a hen cannot either, and she may feel exposed. Turn the nest so its opening faces a wall or a solid partition, not the open floor.
Perches and the nest door: how the hen gets in
A hen will not use a nest she cannot reach comfortably. Most nests fail at the entrance. If the step up is too high, too steep or too slippery, she gives up and lays where she is standing. Watch a hen that is checking a nest. She stands at the lip, looks in, and decides in a few seconds. If the lip is awkward, the decision is made for her.
Give the nest a low, rough landing board that a hen can grip, and a short ramp for the lighter breeds. Keep the lip of the entrance low and the edges smooth so she does not catch her toes. A perch in front of the nest, at the height of the lip, gives her a place to stand and look before she goes in. If the perch is missing, she stands on the floor instead. Our nest box guide covers sizes and materials, so this section can stay on the entrance.
The roost matters too. Hens that roost on the nest tops leave droppings and turn the nest into a perch. A soiled nest is one the hen will not use, and she will look for somewhere cleaner, which is usually the floor.
Broody hens, and the hen that will not leave the corner
A broody hen is not a floor-egg problem in the first place, though she often becomes one. When a hen sits in a floor corner and refuses to get up, she is trying to hatch. She will not lay in a nest while she is broody, and she may lay on the floor before she starts. Broodiness spreads through a flock more than most farmers expect, so one sitting hen is a warning for the others.
Lift a broody hen off the floor once or twice a day and put her in a dark, empty crate with food and water for two or three days. Keep her away from the nest area while she is in there. Do not leave her in a crate for a week, because a hen that stops eating loses condition quickly. Some strains go broody far more often than others, so choose the ones that suit your house when you buy. Our breeds page lists the main laying strains and how they behave.
Do not confuse broodiness with lethargy. A broody hen fluffs up, clucks, pecks at your hand and sits low on the litter. A sick hen is dull, pale and separate from the flock. If you are unsure, your vet should look at her.
Why a damp nest sends the hen back to the floor
Hens choose a dry, clean nest and leave a damp or soiled one. A nest bedded with wet, dirty shavings will be ignored. Once a hen learns that one nest is unpleasant, she looks for another spot, and the floor is the easiest spot to find.
Use dry, clean litter in each nest and refresh it before the first eggs of the morning. Remove soiled bedding as soon as you see it, and keep the litter level so eggs do not roll out. Do not let the nests fill with droppings from roosting hens, and do not use litter that has been wet by a leaking drinker. A leaking drinker under the nest row is a common source of damp bedding that nobody suspects until they lift a board.
Walk the water line once a week. A drinker that spills under the nests creates a wet patch that is hard to see from the walkway, but the hens notice it straight away.
Opening the nests at first light and collecting on time
Timing is part of the habit. Hens lay most of their eggs in the first few hours after the lights come on, which is usually early in the morning. If the nests are closed or the birds are locked out, they will lay on the floor. Open the nest area at lights-on and let the flock move in when it is ready. Do not hurry the birds out of the house, because a flustered hen lays wherever she happens to be.
Collect the eggs at least three times a day in the lay phase. A morning collection, a midday check and an afternoon round catch the eggs before hens leave them on the floor or they get trodden on. An egg left in a nest for six hours is an egg that a broody hen may sit on, or one that a hen may peck. Collection times are the simplest lever you have, and they cost nothing to change.
Keep the routine steady. A hen that lays at eight one day and at ten the next has been disturbed. Keep the same times for lights, feed and collection, and avoid moving the flock during lay.
Hot-season corners: where hens hide in the heat
In the hot season the birds look for shade and cool air, and that changes where they lay. Hens crowd into the darkest, coolest corners of the house, often the ones furthest from the fans or the vents. A rise in floor eggs during the dry months is frequently a heat signal, not a nest problem.
Check the house at the hottest hour. Put a thermometer at bird height in the corner where the floor eggs are. If it reads clearly hotter than the nest side, the answer is airflow, not another nest. Open the side vents, clear tall weeds that block the air outside the house, and move the drinkers so water does not sit in the corners. Our heat and egg drop guide covers the wider feeding and water changes for the hot season.
Heat and light can push hens to the floor together. If you see floor eggs rise only in the afternoon, look at where the sun falls on the walls and the nest row. A shaded nest row costs far less than any amount of extra litter.
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Counting floor eggs so each fix can be measured
A fix you cannot measure is a guess. Keep a simple sheet with three numbers each day: total eggs, floor eggs, and the house temperature at the hottest hour. Work out the floor-egg share each week. Once the share is written down, most farmers find the problem becomes smaller and more specific.
The sheet below is illustrative, for a house of 180 hens. It shows the pattern you would expect when changes are made in order, one at a time, with a note beside each one.
| Week | Eggs laid | Floor eggs | Floor share | Change made |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,008 | 42 | 4.2 per cent | None, this is the baseline |
| 2 | 1,002 | 37 | 3.7 per cent | Nest-row bulb moved to the corner |
| 3 | 1,015 | 19 | 1.9 per cent | Perch added to the front of each nest |
| 4 | 997 | 11 | 1.1 per cent | Broody hens lifted twice a day |
Notice that each change came with a note, so you know which one did the work. If all four had gone in on the same day, you would have no idea which one mattered, and the next time the floor eggs rose you would be starting again.
A two-week trial, one change at a time
Run the trial like this. Record a baseline for one week. Change one thing. Record for two weeks, because a single week can be noisy after a hot spell or a feed change. If the floor share falls by half, keep the change and move on. If it does not move, put it back and try the next idea. Keep a short list of what you have tried, so you do not repeat a failed fix six months later.
The order we usually suggest, because each step is cheap and the earlier ones tend to matter most:
- Clean, dry nest litter and a low, grippable nest entrance
- Dim, private nests, with the floor corners kept as bright as the feed alley
- Collection at least three times a day during lay
- Broody hens lifted and separated for a few days at a time
- Airflow and shade for the hot months
What a floor egg is worth to a seller in Ghana
Put a value on the floor eggs so the fix pays for itself. At 50 cedis a crate of 30, the table egg price we quote, an egg is worth roughly 1.67 cedis before any discount. A floor egg sold as a second, or thrown out, is worth less than that. Here is the worked example for a house of 180 hens losing 42 eggs a week, before and after the fixes above.
| Scenario | Floor eggs a week | Crates equivalent | Value at full price (GH₵) | Value if sold as seconds at 60 per cent (GH₵) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before the fixes | 42 | 1.4 | 70 | 42 |
| After the fixes | 11 | 0.4 | 18 | 11 |
| Saving a week | 31 | 1.0 | 52 | 31 |
The saving looks small on one week, but it does not stay small. Kept at full price, a saving of 52 cedis a week comes to about 2,700 cedis a year for a house this size. At second-grade prices it is about 1,600 cedis. Add the time spent wiping eggs and the cracked eggs a buyer sends back, and the sum grows. None of the fixes on that list needs a new house, which is why they are the first place to look.
Egg quality is what a buyer pays for, and a floor egg is the first thing a careful buyer will notice. Our guide to what buyers want explains the standards most shops and hotels apply.
Mistakes that keep the floor eggs coming
- Adding more nests and expecting the floor eggs to stop. The nests you have may be the wrong height, too bright or dirty, and more of them in the same spot will not change that.
- Blaming the hens' temper. Most floor eggs come from something the farm has changed: a bulb, a drinker, a feed move or a crate of new birds.
- Mixing new pullets into the old flock without a plan. Newcomers copy the habits of the birds they join, including the floor corner.
- Ignoring the broody hen in the corner. One sitting hen can start three more if nobody lifts her out.
- Collecting once a day at peak lay. Eggs left overnight on the floor are the ones that get trodden, stained or eaten.
Checklist for the weekly floor walk
- Walk every corner of the house at lay time, not only the nest row.
- Count floor eggs and total eggs on the same sheet, every day.
- Look at the nest litter and remove any that is damp or soiled.
- Check each nest entrance for height, grip and a clear landing.
- Test the light in the nests and in the nearest dark corner.
- Lift any squatting or broody hen into a nest or a crate.
- Check the drinkers for leaks near the nest row.
- Write down the change made this week and the floor share it produced.
Questions farmers ask
Why are my hens laying on the floor when the nests look fine?
Nests can look fine to you and still feel wrong to a hen. The common reasons are a nest entrance that is too high, a corner that is darker and more private, damp or soiled bedding, or a broody hen who has claimed a spot. Check each of those in order, and change one at a time so you can see which fix works.
How do I stop a hen from laying on the floor after I have moved her into a nest?
Keep her in a nest for an hour in the afternoon, shut the door, and repeat for three to four days. Make sure the nest is clean, dry and easy to reach. If she goes back to the floor, check the light and the nest entrance before you blame her. Hens that try a corner first are often the ones who notice a change in the house soonest.
Does a broody hen always lay on the floor?
Not always, but a broody hen often sits on the floor first and then stops using the nests. She will not lay while she is set on hatching. Lift her off the floor once or twice a day and put her in a dark crate with food and water for two or three days. If she keeps coming back, look at the breed and the nests together.
Is it better to collect eggs once or several times a day?
Several times. Three collections during lay, morning, midday and afternoon, catch eggs before the hens leave them on the floor or the litter takes a knock. Collecting once a day means some eggs sit for hours. Collection times cost nothing to change and are often the quickest fix on the list.
Can floor eggs be sold?
Eggs laid on the floor and cleaned properly can be sold, but usually as seconds to a buyer who knows where they came from. Cracked or heavily soiled eggs should be discarded. Clean the eggs carefully without wetting them more than needed, and be honest with buyers about the grade you are selling. A buyer who finds a dirty egg in a crate you sold as clean will not come back.
Will adding more nests solve the problem?
Not on its own. A flock that lays on the floor usually has enough nest holes already. The problem is the nest's entrance, light, litter or position. Adding more nests in the same bad spot changes very little. Fix the nests you have first, then check the number of holes against the size of the flock.
Does heat cause floor eggs?
It can. Hens look for cool, dark corners in the hot season, and a corner that stays cool can become the favourite laying place. If the floor eggs rise in the afternoon, check the temperature at bird height and improve airflow and shade. The heat guide covers the wider changes for the hot months.
