A good way to keep your hens out of the nestboxes at night

[Penske]

I know this will sound crazy as we all know that chickens do most of their pooping at night, but...


I have 1 Cuckoo Maran hen that, for the past 8 months, has slept in the nest box.
About twice a week, there is some poo in it on the hay. I take it out, put fresh in..no worries. I have no idea how she can go all night w/o pooping!

 

[SimplyForties]

I let mine sleep in the nest boxes. When I first built the coop I put this huge big branch in there, all wired to the ceiling, looks really neat. One problem I didn't anticpate...my large fowl birds really don't fly! They can hop up on the nest box and two or three can get from there into the big branch. They could all fit if the first one or two would move down and let the others up but they won't. So...all the rest go in the nest boxes. Yes, I clean them out every morning. The worst part is that my guineas, who could make good use of my cool big branch, have a board. The guinea's coop is too small to fit the big branch in so I can't swap.

One of these days I'll put some ordinary, low perches in the chicken coop but until then, I'm letting them stay in the boxes!

The nest boxes aren't yet in this picture but you can see the big branch.

 

[valerieb]

I have hinged folding down boards that act as ledges for the nesting boxes during the day and fold up to cover the holes at night. I didn't design it that way originally but got really tired of picking the poop out of the boxes every morning so I took the ledges I had on off and added the hinges.

 

[momma's chickens]

The buckets are a good idea, thanks for sharing!

 

[mdbokc]

I can only say mine have laid eggs by 6:30 AM and 1-3 are nesting getting ready to lay. I'd hate to have to close up the nests at night.