Moisture in nesting boxes

[dclark]

Well the rains finally fell hard enough in Central Texas to cause a little bit of moisture to run into the nest boxes last week! I am hoping a small bead of caulking will stop it so I don't need to build a small awning over the door. I suspect the girls did not appreciate the moisture because three of them decided to lay their eggs on the floor of the coop that day. I changed out the bedding and all is well but am I right in assuming they didn't like the moisture in the nest boxes?

I think the rain eventually leaked in behind the trim piece above the door...

 

[sunflour]

Well the rains finally fell hard enough in Central Texas to cause a little bit of moisture to run into the nest boxes last week! I am hoping a small bead of caulking will stop it so I don't need to build a small awning over the door. I suspect the girls did not appreciate the moisture because three of them decided to lay their eggs on the floor of the coop that day. I changed out the bedding and all is well but am I right in assuming they didn't like the moisture in the nest boxes?

I think the rain eventually leaked in behind the trim piece above the door...

In my opinion, you really do need to add an awning or overhang over the nest box area or deal with water in those nests every time it rains. And when colder weather comes, the wood shrinks and will amplify the problem. You could probably add it with small wedges of wood to the sides and a piece of wood on top of those?

My coop has external egg boxes below a 1 foot overhang roof and we still had problems with water til we added improvements.