nest boxes ( a lesson learned)

Isn't it amazing how smart those six year olds are getting? I us a few apple crates for extra nesting boxes, they work well too!!!

 

Old dresser drawers are another idea

 

great ideal's

 

The little six year child kinda read my mind! I'm putting nest boxes in my coop that only has perches. The boxes I was see or hear about always seem to be wood, nailed to the walls. Must be hard to clean, maybe harbor bugs/parasites. Can plastic wash tubs like you put in sinks, filled with straw, be used? Would they be warm enough in winter? Fallon, Nevada is hardly Michigan. Would you sit them on the floor or would you frame them in, making sure that you could remove the tubs for cleaning and disinfecting? I think I'll try the tubs as a quick fix for now and see how they take to it, but welcome any comments from the more experienced. I'm a sponge, teach me, please!

 

That is cute about the six year old helping out.
We just added six pullets to our new coop a week ago. We spent four months building and designing our coop. We built a 3 nest box nook on the outside of our coop. Each of the wooden boxes has a plastic file box in it. The plastic file boxes where something like 11 inches tall by 14 wide and 17 long. They fit perfectly in our wood boxes. We cut off one end of each of the file boxes and placed them inside the wooden boxes. Each of the boxes are filled with a layer of sand and pdz. When the nest boxes need to be cleaned we can just lift the nest box lid and pick up the plastic file box and give it a good wash.
I also have a few milk crates that have the ends cut off which we can use for a nest box inside the coop if we need once the girls start laying. Learning as we go.

 

@KarennFallon

If you use plastic wash bowls, you will need to fix or weigh them down in some way, as the weight of a hen standing on the edge will tip them up.... and they will stand on the edge to climb in.

 

Smart kid

That's what I use

Milk crates in a shelving unit, where the overlap from the shelf above holds the next row in, and they're semi-private already.... Awesome, love milk crates, and the hens do too!

 

I just use the large rubbermaid totes. Real use to clean and the chickens love them,

 

"I have been using milk crates as nest boxes for years."

With a board held in place with a few zip ties across the front you are good to go.

Nest boxes
In my nest boxes I fold a feed bag to fit (nest boxes are 1 ft³). When a bag gets soiled; fold a new one; pop out the soiled; pop in the new. Feed bags are a nylon mesh bag.
Frozen poop just peels off in below freezing temperatures and just flakes off in summer when left out in the sun to bake and dry.

I have 65 trips around the sun it is the best method I have stumbled upon.

Make sure the twine is removed from the open end of the bag it can get tangled around your birds.