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My nest boxes are 12" wide by 12" long, with a sloping roof on top that goes from 18" in the back to 12" in the front. My Rhode Island Reds are fairly large and fit perfectly into these, have been laying since November with no problems. I do have the 4 boxes raised about 18" off the floor...

Just a quick update, everything was fine with my coop until we had our first single digit night a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of the hens got frostbite on their combs. After that, I put 2 3" vents in each end of the coop, up high, and last night we dropped down to 2 degrees and they seem...

I have the same experience as Ridgerunner, mine don't seem to have much of an issue with snow, as a matter of fact they were out in their run while it was snowing Thursday, but wind drives them inside. Yesterday was particularly windy here, and even though it was sunny, they spent most of the...

I think the thick layer of shavings that I have on the floor pretty much takes care of that - they hardly ever seem to dig all the way through the shavings for any reason, except once-a-while they do near their feed area. They also don't seem to spend a lot of time inside, preferring to be out...

I cut a piece of linoleum to fit the inside dimensions of my coop, I did not glue, nail, or otherwise attach it, and I keep it covered with at least 6" of pine shavings. Has been in coop approximately 6 months and works extremely well. The reason I didn't attach it was so that I could actually...

I give my hens a scoop of scratch mix which contains corn almost every day as a treat now that it is cold weather (1 sccop for 7 hens), doesn't seem to hurt the quality of the eggs - mine only get layer mash as a regular food, however, and since they started laying about 7 weeks ago, I have...

I have 4 nest boxes for 7 hens, and wherever the first hen lays an egg, quite often any others that are laying that day will use the same box. It's not always the same box, they don't seem to have a favorite. To make it even stranger, these are young hens that just started laying a few weeks...

I have the same issue, they dig huge holes next to the edge of the run but never in the middle! I just watch it and if the holes get too big or go under the edge of the run, I bill them back in, not a big deal.

I have 7 RIR's for my first venture into keeping chickens, and find them to be very friendly and non-aggressive. There is one that will occasionally get a little on the aggressive side, but this seems to happen mostly in the morning when I first open their coop and let them into the run, or...

My RIR's are about 27 weeks, and have always spent a lot of time outdoors, even now with the weather getting colder. My run is covered with wire to prevent predators, and to encourage them to spend time in it, I put in some kind of treat almost daily, even if it's just a little scratch mix...

I have 7 Rhode Island Reds that are slightly younger than your oldest (by about 2 weeks), and they are laying sporadically, 1-2 eggs/day total per day at this point and have been for about 2 weeks. I don't expect much egg production because they don't have supplemental light, but they are...

I also put a lip on mine, only a couple of inches high, but works well keeping eggs and nesting material in nest box. My chickens tend to do a lot of scratching around and rearranging of the nesting material in all of the boxes, whether or not they end up laying an egg there, so the lip really...

Congratulations, got our first one last week, what a feeling!!

I got my first one two days ago from my Rhode Island Reds, and a 2nd yesterday, both small but perfect shape with nice hard shells - even though it's only two small eggs, makes the work of getting ready for the chicks, building the coop & run, etc., seem worth it!!!

Got our first egg today - way cool!!!

I use it as a "treat", throwing some into their run every couple of days, they love it and it gets them out into the run for some exercise. They certainly don't need it, and if you give them too much, they'll ignore their layer or whatever other feed you're giving them, which isn't good. I...

Quote: The reds look 1000% better. The other color looks dead, dreary, cold, lonely, no life and boring compared to the red. Ask her to re-think that. I agree, but got to keep peace in the family - I may paint the trim on the coop something brighter in the spring, important thing was...

Just finished mine this weekend - started out painting run with red, but my wife thought it was too bright, so finished coop with a shade of brown - will have to repaint run at some point.

Should be fine to put them all on layer - just switched mine over at 20 weeks, only because that is when I ran out of grower, would have been fine to have done it a little earlier.

I throw a handful of scratch into their run every couple of days just to increase their activity - they love to dig around for it, and that coupled with a bucket of dry leaves put in also seems to keep them very busy and happy.