Plans for Nesting Boxes

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Awesome choice! I too found the same storage bins at Lowe's and fell in love with them. Ours are black, but our Barred Rock chickens haven't started laying yet. It should be any day. They are 19 weeks old and have started squatting. We decided to cut a circle out the backs of each one of the nest boxes so we could have access from the outside of the coop. I hope it works!

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For those on a budget, here is one way to make easilly-cleaned and durable nests. Just take a length of scap plywood or a 1 x 6 board, say a salvaged decking plank. ( Does not matter if it is pressure treated.) Take 5 gallon plastic buckets and a sharpie and trace quarter-circles along one edge. The length and number of these is entirely dependant upon the number of nests desired. For 24 chooks, do 6 nests. For 12 chooks, do maybe 3 to 4. Space the quarter circles so that the buckets will sit in them side by side. Allow the front of the buckets to be a good 4" higher than the back. This will assure that eggs will not roll out, and will help keep the nesting material in the buckets. Just saw out the quarter-circles with a small jig saw, or clamp the board in a vise and use a Sawzall (two-handed reciprocating saw). Next, build a suitable structure to support a nest shelf of plywood or OSB. 2x4's are most likely best, but not mandatory. Nail a1x2 or 2x2 to the bottom front edge to make this shelf firm . Make sure that this shelf is over 6" deeper than the buckets in their mounted position will be, so as to have a walkway for the chooks. Then nail your special piece with quarter circles to your shelf. When you place your nest row, do it against a wall. Then take a strip of scrap lumber, furring strip, whatever is handy and long enough to go the length of your nest row. After laying the buckets in their quarter circles, lay the furring strip on top of the backs of the buckets against the wall. Nail it to each of the wall studs. You now have a firm place so that even if the chooks get rambunctious, they will not dislodge the nest buckets. The framing for all of this has to be designed/ built to accomodate all of it beforehand so as not to be trying to 'add-on' what you forgot to design for at the last. 12" to 24" above floor of coop is a good ht for nest shelf. (mine is 24" above floor) They can easily hop up to it without you having to build a walkboard. I have two walkboards to my nest shelf and neither one is ever used.

You can easily find free 5 gallon plastic buckets at any construction site where drywall is being installed. To clean them, just fill to their tops with water and let it sit for one to three days. Then use a stiff scrub brush and putty knife to clean out the drywall mud. Durable, free, easy to clean nest boxes, free of charge. An added bonus is that there is no place for mites to breed or hide.

Coop cleaning time (once a year, honestly, if coop is designed/maintained properly!) is a breeze because you have wisely left the handles on the buckets and positioned them on top. Just pull them up one by one and dump contents in a cardboard box or wheelbarrow for disposal, compost, or whatever. Then blast out each bucket with your garden hose and lay them inverted for drying. Do all of this only when you have fresh nesting material available so as to return the nests to service quickly. You can even leave one in service while you do all of the others, and save it for being the last one serviced.

Gerry
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Sorry. If you look at top of page two of this post, you will see my setup. I only did the bucket post to give alternatives to folks besides buying $50 worth of plastic boxes at Lowe's.
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Here's some pics of DH making our side-by-side nesting boxes. I'm sure it could be easily modified to make a duplex. (Sorry I seem to be missing the finished photo. If you want I can try to take one this weekend.) Of course, a goat helper is needed to build anything.
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Sorry to be so tardy on response, but I rarely go to this site these days.

If you will go to my BYC page there are a whole series of photos of the exterior and interior of my coop. However, you will see that I did not use buckets because I already had 12x12x4" deep plastic auto parts store boxes. They are removable too for easy cleaning.

I only scrape the poop boards once each day in AM and put the poop into a cover tote box. I only clean the coop every April and do a change out of litter (grass clippings) at that time.

Regards,

Gerry
 

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