Nesting box timeline

[Lauralye62]

We built a coop and chickens won’t be laying till July. Should we add nesting boxes now or wait till we get closer to when they start laying eggs?

 

[darkbaysfordays]

I built mine in at the same time as the rest of the coop. Probably better to give them time to explore and acclimate to them before they're actually laying. July will be here before you know it too!

 

[Urbanchicken62]

I build at same time but cover opening with cardboard until 20 weeks. Then I open and add wooden eggs. Prevents them from learning to sleep in the boxes.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Either or works. For my first chickens, I didn't add the nest box until they were pretty close to laying. But if you want to add them now, there's really no detriment - if the chicks want to sleep in the boxes, just block them off for time being. If they leave them alone, then no reason to block them.

 

[neo71665]

Built same time but my roosting bars are higher and they never tried to sleep in boxes.

I did have one that would sit in there during the day when she was way way too young to even know what she was doing. I'm pretty sure she my head hen now.

 

[jthornton]

My nest box was in place before they arrived and as soon as they had access to the floor they had access to the nest box. The most important thing is that the perch is higher than the nest box so they don't try and sleep and poop all night in the nest box.

You can see the nest box below the poop board in this construction photo.


Photo from a few days ago, almost have all the brooder removed in this photo.


In this photo you can see one of them exploring the nest box area. Sometimes there is several in there during the day.


JT

 

[David61]

I had my boxes built and screened off.
I was going to open them when they got ready. I was a day late. As soon as I had pull the wire off she flew in the box. So 16-18 weeks old? go for it. Less than 16 weeks old you've not getting eggs anytime soon.