nesting box size?

[eastercreek]

We are in process of designing and building coop....no chickens yet, but plan on housing a couple polish and probably a couple of Easter Eggers....maybe a Plymouth Barred. Anyway....no more than 6 hens....but I need to know the best size for the nesting boxes? We plan on having an "overhead" reach-in door style so the kids can reach down in to get the eggs. Thanks for any info.

 

[paddock36]

A lot of people use old milk crates as nest boxes that work very well. Maybe that can give you a good reference size. I think mine are about 14 inch square space per box. I have a three row box for 10 hens. They all like using the same box.


Oops, I forgot.

 

[zazouse]

This is what we use and they were free.

 

[chickerdoodle]

We have 3 nest boxes approximately 14 " square. Our nest boxes are bumped out so they don't take up hen house space. They only use 2 of the 3 boxes (we have 5 hens) so we put a second waterer in the other box for summer!

The "door" is the rose colored part. It opens downward as I am short (4'11") and can see in it. We have a raised hen house that is 32" off the ground that makes it easier to clean for us "not as young as we used to be" folk.

We no longer have that feeder in there--we use a trough instead as it takes less floor space and easy to keep clean and filled. You can see the extra waterer in the 3rd nest!

 

[teach1rusl]

I'd say minimum of 12 x 12, although one set of mine is 14 x 14 and the other is 16 x 16. If you're not cramped for space, I'd go a little bigger than the 12x12...