Nest boxes under poop shelf?

[BigBlueHen53]

Hmm. Now I am going to have to go out and take pictures of my setup... how far above the nests are the poop trays? And how far above the trays are the roosts? I can't picture it in my head, lol. I shall return tomorrow.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

What I know for sure is, your roosts MUST be higher than your nests. Chickens will naturally roost on the highest perches available. If your nest boxes are the highest point, that is where they will roost, and you will have very poopy eggs.

 

[Debbie292d]

What I know for sure is, your roosts MUST be higher than your nests. Chickens will naturally roost on the highest perches available. If your nest boxes are the highest point, that is where they will roost, and you will have very poopy eggs.

Ours (silkies) sleep on top of the nest boxes. We tried roosts and they wouldn't use them. I have a drywall scraper and a giant rubber dustpan that makes quick work of it.

A few sit on that walkway in front of the nest boxes.

 

[thecatumbrella]

Is this what you ended up going with for design? I’d love to see pictures of the finished product, if you’ve gotten that far I’m thinking of building something similar!

I will update in April! No chance of building right now, unfortunately

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Whatever works! Our setup used to be like yours @Debbie292d but then we decided to do roosts+ poop trays bc we thought they would be easier to keep clean. Now I woulld say it's probably six of one, half a dozen of the other. In fact, sand leaks out of the back of the poop trays in spite of lots of screws and we're trying to figure out how to resolve that.