- Jun 25, 2014
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Hi Bruce - very nice egg box with the round-hole entrance. That is the round entrances we have on each of our 3 individual nestboxes. Hens love seclusion so I'm not a fan of your open box but love your lidded one with the round hole. I love the round-hold entrance because it helps to keep some straw in the nestbox when the hens kick it around - especially that OCD Silkie of ours who will scratch til her toes bleed. Had to line the boxes with plexiglass to keep her from getting splinters. They have plenty of deep straw we add every day but the two OCD hens constantly kick it out. We re-homed one of the two OCD hens so now it's just the Silkie that throws the straw around and there's less being kicked out. I suppose it was good to re-home at least one of our OCD hens.Interesting that your birds are the exact opposite of mine. They will scratch around, usually not all the way to the bottom of the box (I usually have at least 3" of pine shavings in them) but they don't toss them out. AND, not only do they NOT push any preexisting egg away, they will move it to the center of the nest where they are going to lay. Here are my boxes, as you can see there is no easy way for them to get the shavings out of the community box, not with that single egg shaped entrance.
This is the open box inside the coop before I put in the 2 dividers. You can see there is a fair bit of vertical depth.
Bruce
Our Buff Leghorn layed pink shelled eggs (pinkish on the interior of the shell also). If you're interested let me know and I'll contact the breeder to see if they're still breeding them (from the Danne J. Honour line). Mr. Honour has bred his Buff Legs to finally lay white eggs but my breeder who previously bought birds from him still has the pink egg layers. My breeder shipped two 11-12 week old juveniles from the East Coast to the West Coast overnight. Birds were priced reasonable but the shipping cost was high.Is that egg really as pink as it looks on my computer? If it is, what breed of chicken laid it? My daughter would LOVE pink eggs.
It is true that a long enough 2x4 on the flat would need some support in the center and perhaps you are correct in your guess as to why people put them in "wrong side up". Time for people to switch to 3" round fence rails. Besides being able to span a longer distance, I notice there is WAY less poop on the rail than on the parallel 2x4 roost.
Bruce
Your fence will keep the chickens inside but it won't keep the predators outside. Anyone else going to chime in on this one?
I use tarp over our 4x6 feed-store coop 24/7. Protects from sun and rain damage since our wood is cheap particle wood. Since our coop has 3 open-wire walls we completely tarp the coop except for ventilation on one side. It's good to use the poultry netting from aerial predators but the fence doesn't look strong enough to keep out ground predators. I'm sure you'll invest in more security as you go along. For pre-fab that is one of the cuter coops we looked at a couple years ago. Now if it only was about 3x bigger and stronger-built for our yard!
So I'm not doing a repeat read my post #3910. Security has to be during the daytime as well. But after all this thread's experienced advice it's still your choice.we have been making sure to lock them up at dusk