Problem: hens roosting in egg box. (pics) Solutions, anyone?

[Gomanson]

I have three hens which are just over three months old. I built their coop when they were chicks and they've been living in it for a little over a month now. A couple weeks ago they realized they could fly up to what I had intended to be the nesting box. They roost up there and it's full of manure. I want to have it clean and ready for them to start laying in the near future. How can I get them to realize it's for eggs and not for roosting and pooping? I have little space to add another "level" anywhere higher in the coop. Here are some pics.

The run will eventually be bigger. The wall opposite the nesting box swings open, which is where the third pic is from.

 

[k2chickens]

well they think it's a roost!!! lol ...but seriously they do...it obvious. Put up a 6 or 7 in ply wood piece in front of the nesting area....this will turn the nesting box into an actually "box" you just seem to have a shelf the girls like to chatter on

 

[socks]

Hi, yeah, in my reading about roosts and nest boxes it seemed to be a golden rule that the roost had to be higher than the nest box otherwise....well what you've got. I guess they just naturally go for the highest place in the joint.

 

[DIMBY]

I also read a while back in one of the other forums that you don't want your nesting box to be too high or, well, comfy -- basically, you want them to lay and go, not to hang around. Most of the nesting boxes I've seen have very low "roofs" so to speak....not high enuf for them to stand up and walk about.

 

[Gomanson]

asylum, I don't quite understand where you say the 6-7" piece of plywood should go. Can you describe it in detail please?

Also, is one box enough for the three? If I made half of the shelf their nesting box, and maybe raised the other half up an inch or two and left it open, might that work (and still leave enough room for both functions)?

 

[2txmedics]

I had the same problem only my coop is alot bigger...my roosts were almost leveled with the nest boxes and this is why they were roosting there. But only on the left side, the right side, the roosts werent near the boxes and they used these for laying.

so what I did is got branches from the yard and I tied them to the coop and also to each other so they dont move and swing, there more sturdy. And now they love them!!!!

Branches just in

First night and now every night

 

[LynneP]

I'd lower the nest boxes to about a foot above the floor and cover the top with extra OSB or plywood to make a roosting platform. You'll get 80% or more of the droppings each morning by scraping into a catch bucket and coop will be very clean!

Check my BYC home page to see...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=7693
about half way down this page

 

[Gomanson]

Thanks for the tips! It's great to have such a resource as BYC for a n00b such as myself. If I could go back in time I would build the little trap door a foot lower and made it open to a small box, which would be attached below the shelf. The shelf would have had a hardware cloth floor, except for the part above the egg box, which would have been plywood.

BUT, since I can't go back in time, I'm having trouble figuring out a way to modify the coop to implement the changes y'all have recommended. The problem is that the little trap door and shelf are so integrated into the design: that part probably constituted half of the design and effort of the whole thing. If I just add a smaller box below the shelf, and put hardware cloth on the sides of the shelf to let poop fall through, I still have the problem of a useless door, and a lack of a door where I need one: to gather eggs.

Although it would be a whole lot of work, I could add a similar door below the existing one to get eggs from a lower box, but then I still end up with a useless upper door.

My wife suggests I put the eggbox on the wide-swinging door, near their food and water. Problems with that idea are: it's a lot of weight on an already-flimsy door, and I still end up with a useless upper door

Here are some more detailed pics. Maybe some of you creative-thinking engineering types can give me some ideas!

 

[fargosmom]

Quote:
Here's a suggestion: since they're already comfortable going on to the shelf you've built, why not just enclose that? Ultimately the nest box itself should be something like 14" in all dimensions (mine is a little smaller but it works). What I would do is build a box that uses your egg door as the back wall, add a front and left (or right) side solid wall, with an entry on the side, using the rest of the shelf as the approach to the entry to the box. Make it small, dark and secluded so they thing they're hiding their eggs. Then build them a nice new roost, somewhat higher than the nest box, and put it somewhere else in the house. With luck, problem solved, without major modifications to your cool chicky condo.
Or you could add a landing perch to the front edge of the shelf, mount partitions so it's divided into about 3 sections with roofs, and add a 3-4 inch piece of plywood to the front edge (making 3 boxes on that one shelf).
Cheers!

 

[Chirpy]

I think I'm thinking the same thing as fargosmom.

Can you add a nest box (you only need one with three hens) on the outside of the wall removing the existing nest box door so that the becomes the entrance to the new nestbox. Thus, your nest box will hang outside the exterior wall of your coop. Many people build theirs that way and you can find some great pictures on the coop site here at BYC.

Here's an example: https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=20375-cottage-coop

Then, use a 2x4 with the 4" side up and run it from side to side a short distance from that new nest box opening? Or, use a ladder type roost as shown above - although I'm not sure you have space for that in yours. Hopefully, they would then use the roost to roost and the nest box to lay eggs.