Nest box pictures?

sammy

Songster
11 Years
Jul 8, 2008
116
0
119
Can someone post some pictures of a proper nest box?

I have a shallow plastic container in the coop now - is that good enough? (with hay in it and a golf ball lol)

I heard I could use one box for 2 chickens (i only have 2)
true?

thanks a million
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1 box will be plenty for 2 chickens.

The most common dimensions are 12" x 12" x 12".

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Cool nest box DWavs. I have an old drawer in my coop for a nest box, with hay. I have other things too, but right now they like the drawer best. All four of my girls lay in the same box, even though there are other places. The drawer is at ground level, I have another box type coop that is about 18" off the ground they sometimes lay in, and then I have nest boxes that are much higher, they use to lay in but haven't all at this year.

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There are a lot of options for nest boxes, chickens like laying eggs all kinds of places. Space is important, but not necessarily to the hens - if they want, they'll lay eggs under a lawn mower!
I experiment with all kinds of things, cause wood isnt as easy to remove/clean and it can harbor mites/lice if you ever got that kind of problem? I dont because I whitewash with DE.
Here are some of my hens favorites (and yes, they do have nice wooden boxes to use too, but the CHOSE to lay in these!)
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Oh and you can have 20 nest boxes and all of your hens will lay in the same one! I think they like one-upping the last hen and laying their eggs together for comparison
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I had to laugh this morning... I opened the pophole door and a beautiful brown egg fell out to the ground! Thankfully, it didn't break. That was the first time one of mine has ever laid in the pophole doorway!!

You can use almost anything for a nest box. Chickens do like their nest boxes dark so try to keep them out of direct light and in a darker, off-to-the-side spot. Also, use something 'soft' like pine shavings (my personal favorite) or straw on the floor of the nest box to help keep the eggs from breaking.
 
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My DH and I built a coop to match the house (with all the leftovers) We thought if we added the nesting boxes outside the coop, it would make for easy collection, and extra space inside the coop! The girls love it.

We live rural but progress goes on and a builider put up a neighborhood right next to us. And, we live on a river with lots of preditors so we had to fence it in. hope this helps
 
a nestbox basicly depends on the hen some will lay in a bucket others in a shoe box hens are wierd.. i had real nice meatal nestboxes my hens would not touch it looked at me like i was nuts so now i use one of them yellow heavy duty mop buckets like you see in schools and they love it.. so what ever works is realy the trick
 

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