- Thread starter
- #21
Do you have any pics? Maybe taking some tomorrow of the boxes would give us a better picture of the dilemma.
I agree with @21hens-incharge, great ideas!
I don’t, but I’ll try to remember to take some tomorrow.
It’s hard to explain. It’s kind of weird how they set up the coop. Basically, it’s a shed they converted. So on one side, they built a shelf that runs alongside the east wall of the shed. The shelf is about 2 feet wide by maybe 6 feet long. The bottom of it is that heavy wire screen material. The mesh of the screen is not fine...the holes are pretty widely spaced. It’s definitely fine for adult hens, but a chick’s legs would fall right through them, I would imagine.
The entire shelf is walled in with plywood, except for a one foot wide opening for the hens to go in and out. There is a ramp leading up to the opening. They lay their eggs on this shelf, which is basically a very large communal nesting box.
There is also a wooden top to the nesting box, which opens with a hinge. This is how we can reach in and collect eggs. However, the box is high enough that it requires me to stand on a step stool to reach in.
I hope this description makes sense.
So you see the problem is that the wire screen runs along the entire length of the long 6 foot box. So I will put a shallow cardboard box underneath the hen, but there will still be wire sceeen outside the box.
So I’, thinking I should line the entire thing with flattened cardboard and nesting material, and then put the food and water outside the cardboard box?? Will the chicks be able to get out of the box and to the food and water?