Has anyone tried nest boxes in the run?

[peepie]

I'm just wondering if this would do or if the nest box really needs to be attached to or in the coop. Pictures are appreciated!

 

[queenbeezz]

I have nest boxes in the coop and the run, also one on the porch because on of the girls lays in my potted plant if she has no box. Everyone has their favorite box and returns to that box every day. I have a total of 12 boxes for 30 hens. One perticular box is the favorite of several hens and they line up like planes on the runway for it. If someone takes too long there is a loud conversation in the coop about it.

 

[wingsofglory]

They'll use any box in a spot they like.

I put the nestboxes on my deck on a table in Hawaii to keep the mongoooses out of the eggs. They had been trying to lay there anyway instead of in the run boxes. To show them the new spot, I simply lifted the hens up on the table next to it. they looked in it and checked it out and came to use it. they did not like the mongooses either. One hen who laid in the middle of the night, would even come across the field from their nighttime tree roost, and climb the stairs in the pitch black night darkness, fly up on the table, and lay her egg in the nest. I don't know how she could see. (They refused to sleep in the coop - no coons, possums, foxes etc in Hawaii, mongooses don't climb more than 4 or 5 feet. Owls are very small.)

My friend saw this working, so put a basket next to her front door on her porch - and the hens used it.

I had next boxes in the run, and in another unused run. the broody liked the box in the unused run - for the peace and quiet I think. When she started a week later on eggs I put under her, I moved her box to a shady spot on the deck. She hatched them there - the move didn't upset her.

I've seen pics of chickens in the south - only have a fence and no coop. The nest boxes were 5gallon buckets turned on their sides, or milk crates, in the run.