I purchased the square(ish) plastic indoor nest boxes from Fleming Outdoors. The girls are getting ready to lay. As I am a newbie to this...those boxes sure do look small now and the perch is thin and narrow. Will they actually go into that small of an area? Maybe my girls are fat ;-). I like the idea of the indoor box since we live in NH. Anyone else use them? Thanks....
Your "fat" birds are most likely mostly feather...lol...so they'll fit. That being said, I did build my nest boxes larger than the 12x12 of most prefab boxes just because they do look like such a tight fit. But those girls will fit in them. You might want to lace the boxes with a wooden or boiled egg so your girls get the right idea...
What size are the nesting boxes? Just depends on if you have standard size or bantam chickens. As a general rule nesting boxes are 12 x 12 x 12. This is an image of my design and what we use at Red Barn Farms. The size I ended up for mine are each individual box measures 12 x 12 x 14.
I assume you are talking about that 4 nest set-up on their website. Those are 12" x 12" so, yes, they will work for any chicken breed I'm familiar with. I've never had Jersey Giants so I'm not sure how big those hens get. What breeds do you have? Something really unusual? I use a golf ball in mine to show them where to lay, then leave the golf ball in there even after they are laying. It seems to help them know where to lay. Wooden or ceramic eggs would also work. I've used the plastic Easter eggs, filling them with sand and glueing them shut, but after a while, they came unglued.
Mine are 12x12 and I've seen as many as 3 chickens squeeze in at once with an empty next right next door. What goofs.
They wil fit fine. Our boxs are 12x13 but our openings differ due to my mom and me being bad with saws. The littlest opening is 7x10 and is the favorite box.
