Nest Box Construction Please help!

[gettinaclue]

My DH is about to finish off my coop by doing the next boxes and roost!

How deep should the nest box be?

Please help. He is standing by the table saw LOL

 

[alicefelldown]

You want them to be deep enough that your girls won't kick out all their nesting material and lay on the wood. A good 5 or 6 inches should do it (if I were building a new box).

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

Standard or bantam?
My boxes are a little too small for my standards at 12" long and wide, with roof slanting from 16" to 10".
Next time I will have boxes 12-14 inches wide, 16-18" deep, and 12" tall at the short end.
And despite what seemed logical, I have discovered it is true that the chickens would rather roost sitting on 2x4's that make little shelves than perch. Put them wide side up, especially if you have a cold winter. They can sit on their own toes to keep them warm this way. I used to have perches only 1.5-2" wide and then read that I should give them 4" perches, so I tried it. Mine like this new roost system so well they hang out in the coop on days when they dislike the weather. I would bet money they are sitting in the coop right now.

 

[Whitewater]

What kind of chickens do you have? Obviously, a huge heavy standard sized hen will need more room than a small, light bantam . . .

Our plans for our coop call for nest boxes that are 12" deep. I suppose if you wanted you could make them anywhere from 12"-18", though -- how big is the interior of your coop? While researching chicken coops myself, I noticed that most people's nest boxes are 12" deep or thereabouts, some were 12" square, some were 12"x15" (like ours, so 12" deep x 15" across, so a total of 30" for 2 boxes), some were 12"x16", but most people kept their boxes around 12".

This seems like a very reasonable space to me, as a matter of fact, I was surprised after we cut the lumber ourselves for our own boxes, at how large the boxes actually were. Ours wound up being 24" high, so the total dimensions were 24"Hx12"Dx15"W, with a pretty steep pitch on the roof to keep the chickens from trying to sleep up there (our breed apparently likes to roost! We'll give them a 2x4 to roost on instead, LOL).

Oh, we also cut a 4" high strip for the front of the next boxes, which is a tad higher than is typical, because we're going to use stuff for bedding that can be easily tossed or kicked out, and we don't want to lose our next box bedding all the time (I'm allergic to both hay and straw, so it's newspaper shreds or pine shavings for us!). Hence the 4" high strip, in the hopes that it will be high enough to keep the bedding in, but low enough for the chicken's use.

Does that help?


Whitewater (new to this myself!)

 

[gettinaclue]

Thanks very much for the help!!

We have 10 standard chickens. 3 RIR, 2 BR, 2 BO, 1 White Jersey Giant, 1 Columbian Wyandotte, and 1 suspected EE.

The coop is ofcourse the appropriate size for them square footage wise, but unsure how big to make the lip of the nest boxes. The front I mean - where they will jump in. There is no slant on top.

Thanks again!

 

[gryeyes]

My nest boxes are 12" wide, 12" tall, and 16" deep. They're rear rollaway, with the eggs rolling past a barrier, so the actual BOX is deeper than that, but the hen compartment is only 16" deep.

I also have a panel in front, so the hens have to get onto a perch, then jump up and over to get into the nest boxes.