Nest Box Size

[IdyllwildAcres]

@Ridgerunner and @IdyllwildAcres Thanks for the feedback on community nest boxes. I'll start a new one this weekend when the kids and grandkids leave. LOL right after I posted twice I saw two hens in the roll out nest box but for sure it's too small. My big mistake was basing it on a single nest box size of 12x12x12x2. Lesson learned.

JT

Bigger is always better! I have NEVER built anything and then wished I went smaller, but I always wish I had gone bigger.

Gary

 

[aart]

14W x 14D x 16H works well for me.
Do not see any advantage to 'community' nests.
Had mine set up with removable dividers so I had that option.
Started out with two nests at the above and one nest at 28 x 14 x 16,
only one bird ever used the larger at a time so put the divider back in.

 

[jthornton]

14W x 14D x 16H works well for me.
Do not see any advantage to 'community' nests.
Had mine set up with removable dividers so I had that option.
Started out with two nests at the above and one nest at 28 x 14 x 16,
only one bird ever used the larger at a time so put the divider back in.

Do they tend to only use one or two of the nests?

JT

 

[aart]

Do they tend to only use one or two of the nests?

JT

Nope, they use them all, tho there are favorites(which seem to change occasionally).
I keep a fake egg/golf ball in all the nests, usually adding one when I gather a real egg during the day. I have 15 (potential)layers and 4 nests. When all birds are laying (not like now) there's some squabbling and squawking, I assume to 'get out of the nest that I want to use right now'. They either wait or use another nest. I rarely see any sharing of a nest, tho I have seen a higher status bird rout out a younger bird.

 

[squadleader]

I've got 12 hens and one rooster. I got a HenGear roll out box, it's 24 inches wide and maybe 15 inches deep (don't recall or have the measurement handy for the depth) that according to them, is good for up to 20 hens. I'm inclined to believe them, since it's worked great for my 12 hens. Most of the time I see just one hen at a time using it, but it doesn't seem to be a problem at all, sometimes I see the next hen nearby waiting for her turn. I also hear the hens do a lot of scratching around on the plastic turf in the box before finally laying their egg.

It has half inch vinyl coated hardware cloth for the bottom, which is covered in plastic turf in the nesting area, allowing debris to fall through. My hens starting laying a couple of months ago, at first I would occasionally have a single egg on the floor of the tractor, but now all the hens use the roll out box.

I was very glad to find out about roll out boxes when I started my research, way less maintenance (no straw) and the eggs are way cleaner, not to mention no egg eating.

If I recall, you have 12 hens too. Personally, I think 12 hens will do fine with your 12"x24" box, it's very similar to mine. You've already built it, maybe try it a few weeks and see how it goes.

You can see one hen in the nesting box and another nearby waiting.

The nesting box is 24 inches wide and you can see the hen in it, there's room for two hens, but I seldom see more than one at a time using it.

 

[jthornton]

If I recall, you have 12 hens too. Personally, I think 12 hens will do fine with your 12"x24" box, it's very similar to mine. You've already built it, maybe try it a few weeks and see how it goes.

I looked at those and sorta modeled mine on them. They have been laying since Dec 20th and watching them on camera and the depth of the box is a bit short and the opening a bit low. I'll make a new one and make it as wide as I have room for and about 6" deeper. Oh and I have 9 RIR hens, but I want to add 2 Golden Comets and 2 Cinnamon Queens in the spring. Thanks for the close up photo of the inside, my false floor angle is a bit shallow when I make the new one I'll put a few more degrees of tilt on it. I'm also going to steal @IdyllwildAcres idea for the rear curtain. I'm still debating on the access door design.

JT

 

[squadleader]

Ha! I went down to the chicken tractor this morning to take them fresh water (it was 2 degrees last night), and measured the HenGear Box, and it turns out it's only 11.5 inches deep, and like I thought, 24 inches wide. So your 12 inch by 24 inch nesting box is actually bigger by a half inch than mine. Now I'm sure you don't need a bigger box. There's plenty of room in the box for two chickens, and when I walked in the tractor this morning there were three in my box!

I threw down some scratch as a treat and that broke up the party, all three hens joined the rest of the flock on the ground to eat the scratch. I was curious about exactly what goes on while they're laying (I've never stayed in the tractor and watched), so I hung around in there, until after they had their fill of scratch and got back to the business of laying. I think you'll get a kick out of the photo sequence I took this morning. It's below.

By the way, be careful on the roll out box slope, mine is 2 inches higher than the way it came from HenGear (it's adjustable). My coop is a chicken tractor, and right now, it's on a slight downhill slope toward the river. I had to raise my slope to compensate for the slope of the tractor. If the tractor is on level ground, I don't need that much slope in the roll out box. In my case, with a tractor I move every week, being able to adjust the slope of the roll out box is crucial, in a stationary coop, you might not need it to be adjustable, although it is a nice feature.

I think just one more reason (there's a ton of other reasons already) a single roll out box is great is, from what I saw this morning (in the photos below), it encourages the hens to police themselves. They waited patiently for the sitting hen to finish, but after a reasonable amount of time, they spoke to her, and eventually went in the box anyway, and as it turned out, the sitting hen had already finished, and was indeed hogging the box. The other hens handled it.

In my book, this is a great outcome. The other hens are policing each other to make sure nobody takes too long. I'll bet this might be useful in keeping any of the hens from getting broody too.

I just checked when I bought my egg skelter, the waterslide looking thing I store my eggs on) and it was Sept 21, about when my hens started laying, so my hens have been laying a little over 3 months now. I usually get between 7 and 12 eggs a day, with an average right now of 9, which in the dead of winter, and incredibly low temperatures, is probably pretty good.

The best value I've gotten dollar for dollar, with my little chicken hobby, is the plastic egg skelter (it has several different names on Amazon, mine was Yixin Egg Run). I store my eggs on. Search Amazon for "plastic egg skelter" and you'll recognize it by the lime green color. I paid about $10 for each one. If you can't stand the crazy lime green color you can paint it. It holds about 22 large eggs, but I bought three, and turned them into two skelters by simply using the extra sections to make it taller, one holds 44 eggs, and the other about 28 eggs.

I have kids and it's just a fact that an egg skelter is the only way to make sure we're using our oldest eggs first. The kids simply put any eggs they collect in the top of the skelter, and only pull eggs from the bottom for use, no marking cartons or having a carton forgotten for months at the back of the Frig.

We were having a lot of trouble keeping up with which eggs were oldest, now it's a no brainer. I put a photo of the skelter below too. You can get them in wire, but I liked no eggs can fall through the solid plastic one, plus I can take the standard 22 egg one, and just add on sections when I assemble it, to create a skelter as big as I want.

In my research I found out something very interesting about eggs. There's a coating called the bloom on eggs when they're laid. As long as you don't wash the egg (which removes the bloom), an egg is fine at room temperature for well over a month. It needs no refrigeration, the bloom prevents any bacteria from entering the egg. The only reason store bought eggs have to be refrigerated is that they are washed, removing the bloom.

Any cook will tell you, eggs are best used in cooking at room temperature. It's very cool to be able to keep them right on the counter in the skelter. That's another reason a roll out nesting box is far superior to a regular nest, the eggs are so clean, no poop or dirt, that you don't even feel the need to wash them, which would then require you to refrigerate them because that destroys the bloom.

In this photo, one hen is in the box laying and two are waiting their turn.

After a few minutes, the Golden Comet stuck her head in the nesting box to put some social pressure on the sitting hen to hurry up.

Then the black hen decided she would second the motion for the sitting hen to hurry up, by joining the Golden Comet on the roosting bar.

Here you see the three of them having a frank discussion about why hens shouldn't hog the nesting box!

Finally the black hen decided enough was enough, and she joined the laying hen in the nesting box.

In this photo you can see that actually these two hens are occupying only half the box, this box really could hold 4 hens.

This is the plastic egg skelter we use. Search "plastic egg skelter" on Amazon and you'll see it under several different names and prices, but the same product with each. I paid about $10 for each, and hold about 22 large eggs. The one pictured here is two units I combined (used the green track sections from two units on just one of the bases) and holds about 44 large eggs.

 

[jthornton]

Pretty cool egg thing... just the two of us so no problem with left to right in an egg carton. Thanks for all the photos.

I've seen two in my roll out nest box several times... and sometimes they weren't laying lol. I still want to make a new one with some design improvements and might as well make it large as the space allows. I'll incorporate all the features I like and change the ones I don't like. Just a little time and some packing crate plywood and some left over one bys.

JT