Fostering 15 hens

[CoFarmer]

Wise ones, How many nesting boxes do we need for our 15 hens (lavender and buff Orpingtons and Araucanas) which came to us full grown (fostering indefinitely). We are using our old hen house, 8x10 tuff shed, and built a 10x20 run for the girls and the roosters. There is one large nesting box divided into 3. We keep getting cracked eggs because of the level of activity. Thanks!

 

[Kiki]

Probably just 2 but I'd go with 3 to be sure.

What is on the bottom of your nest box?

 

[aart]

Is there good bedding inside well covering the hard sides and any framing inside the nests??
Are the dividers sturdy?
Are they all using just 1 nest or all 3 nests?
3 should be fine but adding another 1-2 might help the situation.

Pics of nests here might help.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The rule of thumb is one nest for every 4 or 5 hens. If they are 12" x 12', maybe you need another nest. If they are around 16" x 16" those three are probably enough.

You should not be getting cracked eggs due to activity. That sometimes shows the shells are too thin and they need more calcium in their diet. How are you feeding them? How are you supplying calcium? If all they eat is a Layer feed they should be getting enough calcium but if they forage for much of the food or you feed them low-calcium "treats" offering oyster shell on the side may be a good idea. I'd offer it on the side anyway.

How well padded are your nests? You need enough bedding to cushion the eggs when they are laid. What do those cracks look like? Could you post photos of the cracked eggs and the nests. That might help us determine why they are cracking.

 

[CoFarmer]

Probably just 2 but I'd go with 3 to be sure.

What is on the bottom of your nest box?

Hi, the three worked well. The bedding that the other owner seemed to be the problem. We switched out to some woven nesting pads, and put a hinged cover on the roll out tray. Things seem better!

 

[CoFarmer]

Is there good bedding inside well covering the hard sides and any framing inside the nests??
Are the dividers sturdy?
Are they all using just 1 nest or all 3 nests?
3 should be fine but adding another 1-2 might help the situation.

Pics of nests here might help.

Thanks! The boxes we “inherited” were a mess, as they had carpet on base. Yuck. We clean them out, got rid of the disgusting carpet, and are using woven, fake straw mats. They work well, but it also helped that we improved their feed, and put a hinged cover on the rollout tray. Everyone suggestions were great. Stability seems to have settled in! Thanks!

 

[CoFarmer]

The rule of thumb is one nest for every 4 or 5 hens. If they are 12" x 12', maybe you need another nest. If they are around 16" x 16" those three are probably enough.

You should not be getting cracked eggs due to activity. That sometimes shows the shells are too thin and they need more calcium in their diet. How are you feeding them? How are you supplying calcium? If all they eat is a Layer feed they should be getting enough calcium but if they forage for much of the food or you feed them low-calcium "treats" offering oyster shell on the side may be a good idea. I'd offer it on the side anyway.

How well padded are your nests? You need enough bedding to cushion the eggs when they are laid. What do those cracks look like? Could you post photos of the cracked eggs and the nests. That might help us determine why they are cracking.

Hi, all of the suggestions are great. Improvements we made are discussed in the other replies, seemed to have stabilized things. Thank you.