Nesting boxes made from removable dish bins?

[gtaus]

I am building my first nest boxes for the coop. The 3 nest boxes will be internal to the coop, but I have an access door on the outside wall that allows access to the back of the nest boxes to collect the eggs.

The nest box design I am thinking about building is based on using plastic dish pan/bins from the Dollar Tree. The bins would be set on rails and the bin itself would be removable. I have read some old threads on this concept and have watched a few YouTube videos about this concept.

Advantages: Removable bins, easy to clean and/or replace, broody hen can be moved with bin and eggs all at once, plastic dish bins are only $1 each.

Disadvantages: ??? Nobody mentions any disadvantages of this concept.

If anyone has some disadvantages to using these plastic dish bins for nesting boxes, please let me know. Or, if any has some built next boxes with this concept and it works just fine, I would like to know that too. Thanks.

 

[thisoldcoop]

 

[123RedBeard]

My concern would be that they would be slippery ... that the shavings would just scoot out of the way, when they hop in ... maybe a tight bunch of straw or a piece of old carpet could/would work ...

I've never used the plastic, those that have, how does the bedding/nesting material work?

 

[thisoldcoop]

Based the whole new design of my chicken coop on using $2.00 plastic bins. Husband designed the wooden structure to hold them. It will hold six bins but I currently just have four in them (the chickens are only using three!). They are fabulous! I use wood shavings, so if the chickens make a mess in the bin, I just dump the shavings and use the hose to rinse out the bin. I just toss in a couple of handfuls of shavings, and back in business! I don't have access from the back wall, I just walk into the coop and collect eggs that way.

 

[21hens-incharge]

My concern would be that they would be slippery ... that the shavings would just scoot out of the way, when they hop in ... maybe a tight bunch of straw or a piece of old carpet could/would work ...

I've never used the plastic, those that have, how does the bedding/nesting material work?

I use the dish pan nests.

Mine have a support board under as well as anti-tip boards.

I use pine shavings in mine about 2-3" thick. They do make a dent in it to lay but there is always shavings under them.

Cleaning is a breeze and if they get cracked they are cheap to replace.

The only downside I found is my really big birds do not fit comfortably. Mostly it is the giant cochins that really overfill the nest.

That coop is getting a makeover with external communal boxes very soon.

 

[21hens-incharge]

So, are you giving up on the plastic bin design for something you think will be better? What is the external communal box design? Thanks.

I love the bins. My big coop has normal sized birds so will be keeping their bins.

My second coop has gigantic birds weighing 10+ pounds so they need more room in the nests.
I am building an external double decker that each nest will be 29" wide and 16" front to back and 18" high.

Here is a picture of my nest set with bins.

 

[gtaus]

After building the coop, he was done with building anything lol. We bought a house when we got ducks. He wanted something easy for the nesting boxes, that's all.

I can understand that after having spent about 2 weeks of dedicated time to building my 6X12 chicken coop on an old boat trailer. It was a lot more work than I had planned.

Nothing wrong with going easy as I also believe that many of us get chickens for the enjoyment, not for saving money on buying eggs. So the less effort put in and the more enjoyment taken from the project is a win in my book.

 

[gtaus]

Looking forward to seeing your design and build.....

I have been taking a few pictures of the finished mobile chicken coop on the outside and will try to figure out how to upload them to my coop page. Still have some work with the nest boxes inside, but almost done. Working around a computer challenge at home as my main laptop computer overheats and turns off after about 15 minutes and my backup laptop computer suffered a hard drive crash last week and I don't know if that can be recovered. Probably have to order a new HDD. So I have a few computer challenges to overcome but at the moment they are not a priority as I have been busy outside in the yard building the coop, tending the garden, and mowing the lawn almost every day (I have 3 acres of lawn to mow and usually break that up into 4 day sections, then repeat). But pictures will be posted in the near future, I hope.

 

[wolfinator]

I use them and love how easy they are to clean. I should have thought about using them years ago.

Dish pans on left in soda box nesting shelves. The right has my Goodwill finds. Several of my 33 standard girls get into squabbles over who gets to lay an egg in the Dollar Tree dish pan nests. The top right nest for some reason they don't care for and rarely use, I even tried adding different inserts. Since taking photo, I've added an old molded pet food bin without the door on top of right nesting shelf (my broody Columbian Wyandotte is currently using it to sit on 3 khaki Campbell duck eggs and a banty egg from my 4 1/2 year old Showgirl - keeping fingers crossed. I also have an old wooden crate as a nesting box on the floor that my Showgirl prefers to use. The white dish pans and the blue containers are the only new items for their nesting boxes, all the shelves were either recycled or bought used at Goodwill. I'm still looking for more shelves to make into more nesting boxes, I have 25 pullets soon to start laying.

 

[ChickEngineer]

I am building my first nest boxes for the coop. The 3 nest boxes will be internal to the coop, but I have an access door on the outside wall that allows access to the back of the nest boxes to collect the eggs.

The nest box design I am thinking about building is based on using plastic dish pan/bins from the Dollar Tree. The bins would be set on rails and the bin itself would be removable. I have read some old threads on this concept and have watched a few YouTube videos about this concept.

Advantages: Removable bins, easy to clean and/or replace, broody hen can be moved with bin and eggs all at once, plastic dish bins are only $1 each.

Disadvantages: ??? Nobody mentions any disadvantages of this concept.

If anyone has some disadvantages to using these plastic dish bins for nesting boxes, please let me know. Or, if any has some built next boxes with this concept and it works just fine, I would like to know that too. Thanks.

I have used the plastic dish bins for a while now, work great, the girls seem to be OK with them.