Nest box help for 4 EEs

[ONSTAD1]

Designed my 4x4 coop with the nest boxes "Inside" the coop. I've come to the conclusion that that just takes up too much floor space and I'm going to attach the nest box/s to the side instead. Can 4 large foul share one nest box or should I go with my original plan of 2? The nest boxes I made are 12x12x12. Think I should go larger? 14x14x14 overkill?


thanks

Mo

 

[karlamaria]

I had five girls and a very large nesting box. they all shared it. it worked out wonderful. my nest box was 12 tall, and 24 long 12 wide. when I redid my coop and run I took off the nest box and lowered it and made it deeper and taller. it worked fine until my girl went broody for the 20th time I swear. she will not let one bird in the box! if you do a long nest box, divide it so that if a hen goes broody there will be another box for the others to use. my mistake was I did not do it. I just ordered 2 more nest boxes that I fell in love with off ebay. made for large birds . I will be screwing them onto the inside wall so the other girls will now have a choice when the broody gets nuts.

 

[TwoCrows]

I have a small coop as well. Originally I had 1 internal nesting box for 4 girls, but found it to be taking up too much space. So about the time my 4 girls began laying, I installed a 10x10 inch box externally. It worked quite well, but it seemed that everybody wanted to lay at the same time each day and there was a line up out the ramp pop hole! So I installed another 15x15 inch external for a total of 2 boxes for 4 girls. Oddly enough, even though my Aussies are large birds, 2 of them still use the 10x10 and the other 2 use the 15x15. AND....no waiting line!