Discouraging sleeping in the nesting box

[sharonieoh]

Hi all,

I'm a first time chicken keeper with four funny, adorable pullets hatched in May. We found our first egg yesterday, which is super exciting but also means we really have to figure out how to convince our chicks not to sleep in the nesting box.

When we first installed the nesting boxes, all four of them would squeeze into one box at night. Hilarious, but not ideal! (They have a roost, but at that point they weren't using it at all, just sleeping on the henhouse floor, which is covered with bedding.)

I blocked the boxes with plywood and now two of them roost at night. The other two bed down on the floor right in front of their favorite box. One of them even tries to roost on the slanted "roof" above the boxes.

And now they're laying, and I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?

 

[sourland]

Is the roost positioned higher than the nest box ? If not can you raise it ? Chickens generally like to roost at the highest point possible.

 

[sharonieoh]

It's higher than the boxes, except for where the wood above the box meets the wall. If we raised it, I'm not sure if there'd be enough clearance above their heads to fly up. I feel like I have some strange species of ground-nesting chicken in these two.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Continue blocking off nests at night (remove plywood after dark), and manually place them on the roosts.

 

[aart]

Post pics of coop, outside and in, showing nests and roosts.