Nesting box help, is this too small?

Hello!

My husband and I are big fans of making stuff out of whatever we have lying around before we'll ever buy anything (much to the chagrin of our neighbors who have to look at our, uh, 'unorthodox' designs! )
We recently raised Red Rangers for meat (saving the 4 girlies for eggs for awhile) and since that went well, we decided to get buff orpingtons to be able to hatch our own babies as well as have some eggs and meat.
Ok, so I thought I'd come up with the most ingenious FREE nesting box design using a 55 gallon barrel and some plywood we already had. We made two of these things, so 4 separate boxes, but now I'm concerned about the width. I put a 3.5 month old red ranger pullet in there to see how she fit and it didn't look like she would be able to turn around, though I didn't see her try. She just stood there looking at the back wall for 2 minutes until I pulled her back out, lol, but she's not super bright or anything. So the question is, will a BO be able to jump in and then turn around in there?

The dimensions are 16 inches high, 15 inches deep, but only 11 inches wide.

I suppose I could cut out something like "windows" on the side walls so they could stick their heads out as they turn around. ??

That should be plenty big! They don`t need to move around too much, just squat and lay the egg. As a matter of fact, you could just cut the other end of the barrel off and put a partition down the middle to create 8 laying boxes.

Hope this helps!

My big girls use the set up I made that each box measures 12 wide 16 high and 15 deep without any trouble at all.
I think yours will be able to use them without any issue as well. I like the ingenious idea you had.
Always a fan of using what is already there.

OK great, thank you guys so much for your answers! We discussed if anybody has a hard time with it we'd just take out the center piece, which would probably be way too big but would solve the problem. But you give me hope we won't have to amend it!

Just thought I'd update in case anyone came across this thread, the girls fit find and in fact I've seen two in one box at the same time before!

Yes. I am using milk crates for my girls and they will pile in 2 at a time instead of using seperate crates. They are so silly.

That is awesome! I love that every spot in your pic has a happy hen in the nest. Nice use of materials on hand.

21hens-incharge said:

That is awesome! I love that every spot in your pic has a happy hen in the nest. Nice use of materials on hand.

Click to expand...

Thanks! This picture makes me giggle, it looks like the first three are looking at the backwards one like "Really, Becky? Get it together!"

machinfarm said:

The dimensions are 16 inches high, 15 inches deep, but only 11 inches wide. I suppose I could cut out something like "windows" on the side walls so they could stick their heads out as they turn around.

??

Click to expand...

No problems from my perspective.
Nest boxes
In my nest boxes I fold a feed bag to fit (nest boxes are 1 ft³). When a bag gets soiled; fold a new one; pop out the soiled; pop in the new. Feed bags are a nylon mesh bag.
Frozen poop just peels off in below freezing temperatures and just flakes off in summer when left out in the sun to bake and dry.

I have 65 trips around the sun it is the best method I have stumbled upon.

Make sure the twine is removed from the open end of the bag it can get tangled around your birds.

Quote: