Dishpans in your nest boxes?

[Wise Woman]

Hi everyone. I am not new to chickens or even this board, but I am new to posting! My husband and I will be building our dream coop in a few weeks. We are in our 50's and I just found out I have arthritis in both knees and hips, so we are going to build a coop that is extremely easy for me to care for since I love caring for the chickens. It will be raised to a height that is easy for me to clean out while standing up and have a vinyl floor for easy wiping up. The nest boxes will be on the outside of the coop this time so I can just lift the lid and get the eggs out. However, I then thought how will I clean out the nest boxes like that? So am thinking, what if I put a plastic dish pan in each nest box to hold the hay. Then I could just lift the pan out, empty it, wash it and refill it with clean hay. Has anyone else done this and does it work? Hubby will make the nest boxes so that they fit right around the dish pans. Our other thought was to make one large nest box with no side dividers so that the soiled hay could just be scooped out without having to do each box individually. I plan to keep chickens forever and want to get everything just right with this coop as he probably won't even consent to building another one! LOL! Thanks.

 

[Lesa]

The dishpan (or any other type container, like that) will work fine. I don't find that I really need to clean out the nesting boxes very often. I just keep adding new wood chips, now and then and they seem fine... Sounds like a good project you've got going! Don't forget to post pics....

 

[Wise Woman]

Thank you! I don't clean my nest boxes out that often either, but when I do, it is kind of a pain trying to scrape out all the shavings. I am trying to think ahead to when I am old and don't get around too well. I do like to clean out my coop twice a year and give it a good scrubbing. Plus several of our chickens use the nest boxes as beds and don't roost. So we probably get more poo in them than we should have if they just used them for egg laying.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Both plans sound like wise ideas, Wise Woman! How nice to have someone to build for you.

I too don't find it necessary to do a lot of cleaning of nest boxes, just occasionally when someone's pooped or tracked in mud, or when an egg breaks.

Another thing you might consider is to not only have the roof of the nest boxes hinged, but also have the entire back (outside) wall of the protruding nest boxes hinged at the bottom. Then when you need to clean you can lift the roof, unhook the back wall and lower it so you can easily sweep out the hay. If there's vinyl covering that floor it could be washed/wiped at that time. You could have the back wall hinged whether you make individual nest compartments or have one big common area.

Please ask Mister to come over here when he's through building for you...

 

[Wise Woman]

This was my other thought. We could make the back wall of the nest boxes open like two doors or hinge it on the bottom so it opens down. My husband has limited building skills, but I have a handyman guy at the ready if I need him. I don't want to have to pay him $25 per hour to build a chicken coop, but I do want it done right so it never has to be done again. It also needs to look nice as it will be visible from the street as well as our living room and dining room windows. So it might be a good idea to just hinge them both.

 

[debid]

Another possibility would be to make the front of the nest boxes with two pieces (small, fixed board at the top and wide board below). The two are connected with hinges. Attach a rope to the bottom of the wide board, run it through a pulley that's attached to a roof rafter, and then put a loop at the end of the rope in easy reach. When it's time to collect eggs and/or clean, you pull the rope, hook the loop to a hook on the wall, do your work, unhook, done! This way you don't lift and hold a heavy board (the pulley cuts the weight load in half), you can sweep straight out rather than reaching down and in, and I think the fixed roof and two-part front would be more rain-resistant than a hinged roof.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The nest boxes in one of my coops has a hardware cloth floor and the dividers slide in and out. Then there is a board that slides under the hardware cloth with aquarium heaters glued to it to slow down egg freezing for winter. In the spring I slide the board out. Pull the dividers, theres usually little dirt but I disinfect, scrub, hose out, let dry, dust all corners with DE, put the dividers back, New excelsior pads and it stays clean a long time.

The other coop has a removable bottom board I plan to replace each year.

 

[ChixMama]

We used "dishpans" that I found at the dollar store and they are working great. You don't need to clean them out very often, just fluff up the shavings/hay or add additional as they kick it out

 

[elmo]

Mites are a real problem in the summer where we live, and that's why one of my primary requirements for nestboxes was that they be easy to clean out. I use plastic lidded storage totes and a covered kitty litter box. Because they're portable, they're easy to dump out in the composter, the plastic is easy to clean and they have no crevices for mites to hide in. Cleaning is so easy, in fact, that in the summer time I routinely empty, clean and put in fresh bedding (with a sprinkling of poultry dust underneath) all the nestboxes about once a week. So far, no mites.

I think the plastic dish pan is a great idea. Not only for ease of cleaning, but if you end up with a broody someday, it makes it very easy to relocate her. Just lift the pan with the hen, nest and eggs inside and put the whole thing down in your broody coop. That's how I managed our broodies last spring, and it worked beautifully.

 

[Blue CopperHen]

I just bought dishpans tonight for my coop. Do you think I should cut the front down a little, or should they be fine as is?