No bedding nest box

[Bdumoch]

Do chickens usually tend to stay away from nest boxes without any bedding? Trying to figure out if it’s better to do a rollout with no bedding or port with bedding.

 

[Ted Brown]

I recently built a front roll out using artificial grass in lieu of bedding. Huge success! The design allows a single piece that can be easily removed to shake or clean; hens have nothing to rearrange or toss outside.

 

[Bdumoch]

I asked this very loosely because I am terrible at math lol but approximately what angle do you think your nest box is in to have it roll over the grass?

 

[StinkyAcres]

Do chickens usually tend to stay away from nest boxes without any bedding?

Yes. If it's not soft they won't use it.

 

[aart]

Some birds have no problem laying in roll out nests.
Can be hard to rig fake eggs to entice them.
Some are used to having bedding, thus the need for some bedding at first then slowly removing it after they are using the nests regularly.
Some like @Ted Brown changed the nest floors to roll outs and had no problem with the birds using the new configuration.

 

[Ted Brown]

I asked this very loosely because I am terrible at math lol but approximately what angle do you think your nest box is in to have it roll over the grass?

I used a pitch calculator to get the angle of 12.5 degrees.

To build I just raised the back by 3" over the 24" width of the floor board. I set the opening from nest to roll out box at 2.5"; with the artificial grass even my largest eggs roll to the front. On caveat is that waste from the hen can interfere with an egg rolling so keeping the grass clear of debris is important.

@TexasBlues gave me the height of the nest to roll out box opening as 2.5 to 2.75 inches and the width of the box as 9" so that hens cannot reach an egg. My experience confirms these measures work.