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Good morning Oregonians! I am in Salem. I was looking through to see if anyone else was in Salem, but there are 684 pages to this forum...and I just don't have the time to read them all lol.
I should receive my (2 or 3 day old) baby girls next week! I am so excited!! I have the brooder all set up, and we are about half way done building the coop. I'm hoping to get it done soon. Does anyone know how long it takes the City of Salem to get the permit to you once they inspect the coop? Just curious.
Sure would be nice to know others in my town that have chickens. My family and friends laugh at me and say I'm being a little OCD about it. I tell them no, I'm just excited! I've always wanted chickens. And I'm just trying to learn everything I can to take proper care of my girls
D.gif
 
shmooborp said:
yeah.. its aginst the law to have any sorta chicken in salem. dumb. but if you live in the country side of salem they usually let it go... mabye the mayor has a chicken phobia?
Click to expand...
I realize this was posted oh so long ago. But thankfully the laws have been changed now. Granted you have to run through hoops, and have a permit. But having done all that, it is now ok to have chickens inside Salem City limits!
 
Karenmyrrh said:
PHOTO CALL!
Say... Everyone who has time... Can we talk nest boxes?

Show me yours? I'd love to see what you guys use. So far (and I know they're new to this) I've had an egg in the run, one in the coop tonight and 3 in the boxes. So I'm wondering if mine are up to snuff or could be better.

So can you all post pics or dimensions etc so we can have a nest box talk!
Thanks!!
Click to expand...

Here is a photo of the basic design of our nesting boxes:



We install these in the side wall of our coop so we can access the eggs from inside the coop by reaching in from the tall side, or from outside the coop by lifting the sloped top of the box which is hinged. The boxes are installed on the shady side of the coop under a big tree so they are protected from the worst of the weather and stay cooler during the summer. The boxes and the trays in them have wire mesh bottoms for better ventilation. We thought we had another month before our pullets started laying, so this box (our first) was built after we found our first eggs. Once the box was available, the pullets took to it right away. Clever girls.

Our boxes are a very large for nesting boxes, but that works out nicely I think as some of the hens like to lay together with their buddies. But obviously I need more boxes if birds are doubling up (or tripling, or ...) -- I'll probably always need more nesting boxes.

The trays inside the boxes (say "Cherry Creek" on them and I found them in one of the barns here on the farm) are about 36" wide and about 22" deep and have a wire mesh bottom (daffodil bulbs were shipped in them, which amuses me). Many different types of trays could be used but the mesh bottom is a nice feature. We added the dividers. The trays are removable from the boxes and the dividers are removable from the trays. If we don't put the divider in, the hens don't use the box as much. The hens seem to prefer a more enclosed space to a more open space.

The back side of the boxes have about 10" minimum of clearance inside, and the front is quite a bit higher. The hens tend to point their bottoms toward the back of the box, so the 10" clearance at the low side is fine even for our Jersey Giants. The hens like to raise up to pop out the egg, so headroom is important.

It is great to have slide out trays because if a hen goes broody in one we can lift the whole thing to put it in a separate spot for her to brood (move the hen at night unless you want to confuse her). If we just have one broody hen we take out the divider, but if we have two broodies starting at the same time we leave the divider in until after hatch day, and then those two hens buddy up to share responsibility for the hatch, which is ADORABLE! Also the trays can be removed for cleaning or for restocking the nesting materials or even pulled forward for gathering eggs if reaching in is uncomfortable.

I installed spongy rubber shelf liner mesh into the bottom of some of the trays for a softer landing spot for the eggs, but honestly it doesn't seem to make a difference and is an extra step/expense. The wire mesh is pretty springy which is a nicer landing spot than plywood would be, and we line the nests with hay, which the hens love to eat and arrange while they nest. We do seem to have less breakage with the hay in the nesting boxes than we did/do with shavings, but, again, the spongy shelf liners don't seem to make a difference for us. A bale of hay is expensive, but it lasts a long time. "Borrowing" some hay a flake at a time would be more practical for someone with fewer birds and no hay-eating animals.

We have a lot of hens, and added nesting boxes on an "emergency" basis as we noticed there was a line at rush hour. We installed seven of these (14 nests) before I figured out I could make a single longer box and install the trays in that. A week ago I added another 8 nests (4 trays) in a long box and that was faster to build and used less materials than the single-tray design. Live and learn.

After the flock got used to the boxes I took Purina feed sacks and stapled them to the top of some of the nesting boxes so the sacks hang down over the front of the box like a privacy curtain. The private boxes are much more popular, so I'm going to add curtains to the rest of the boxes. It is funny to pull the curtain up and find like 8 hens in there. Sorry girls!
 

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