Building my nest boxes... *PICS*

[MichiganWoods]

Keep in mind I've never looked at plans... nor have I ever built anything like this in my life... I've been looking at a ton of boxes online but just couldn't justify the huge huge cost. Plus, I wanted wood nests with a roll out, and so far I've only seen it made in metal.

Not perfect, but we'll see how well it works when the chickens arrive!


Here was the start of the nest box structure:

Here I put a lid on the top with a hinge (going to add two more support hinges before I'm all said and done):

Here it is on the stand I put together, with it's hinged lid pulled open:

Here it is coated with a primer coat of white barn paint:

And the back view:

And a close-up on the roll back trough:

 

[Justino]

VERYYYY NICE!!!! u gotta take pics of em in em when they start layin

good job,

 

[MichiganWoods]

Thank you! I sure will!

Tomorrow I'm going to give them another coat of paint and hopefully they'll be good to go (bar adding hay!)

 

[nhnanna]

good job

 

[redoak]

Nice design, they look great too.

 

[Justino]

Quote:
well, just dont forget it will have poop all over it later lol

 

[MichiganWoods]

Thank you all.

Yeah, I know there's going to be a lot of poop.

We decided that even though our coop can house 25, we're only going to start with 12 hens. I figure that'll give us enough to deal with for the winter, plus there won't be *as* much poop as there could be. Should make the DLM pretty effective.

 

[steffpeck]

Are you going to have it on the inside of your coop or will it be outside with the box openings on the inside?

 

[MichiganWoods]

On the inside. We've got far far too many predators around here for me to put this outside, or even have it open up to the outside. I've been reading that hens like dark spaces to lay their eggs, so I'm going to face the opening towards the back wall and leave about two feet for them to maneuver up into the nests. That way, when I go into the coop, I can walk towards the back and the eggs should be facing me in the trough. That's the idea, anyway!

 

[chickkat]

Real nice ! Did you build the coop too? We just finished our coop and I don't know whether to insulate it or not. Have heard conflicting stories towards weather I should or not. We live in the mountains of west central Montana and it is snowing outside right now ! Went down to 31 this morning. Brrrrrrrr ! By the way I am a newcomer to forums and may make many mistakes before I get this all straight! LOL !