Roll Out Nest Box

[jthornton]

Your headless chicken is cute!

Yes, they are curious little buggers when they get over being scared of something new.

JT

 

[aart]

'Grats!

What's the 'curtain' material?

 

[jthornton]

I'm not sure, I found it at Hobby Lobby. It doesn't have an open weave like fabric does so it can't unravel. Still it's soft and flexible like fabric is and looks like fabric. Next time I'm in town I'll take a photo of the label on the bolt.

JT

 

[jthornton]

'Grats!

What's the 'curtain' material?

@aart here is the photo of the bolt of material.



JT

 

[aart]

Looks thin and light...but fairly stiff?

 

[jthornton]

Looks thin and light...but fairly stiff?

No, it almost feels like regular cloth but with a different texture.

JT

 

[squadleader]

Great post and wonderful information. A roll out nesting box has so many advantages. No egg eating, no straw to maintain, no opportunity for the hen to go broody, very, very rare to have any poop at all on the eggs, and just one box to collect from and maintain.

If someone reading this wants the advantages of the roll out system, but doesn't have the time or skill to build their own, I found a great box that's ready to go, with just the assembly of the metal panels with the supplied hardware, it's made by HenGear.

I've attached some photos. I liked it's reversible, so when it arrives, you have all the parts for the eggs to rollout in the coop, under the perch, or the eggs can roll out the back, through the coop wall, like with my set up, it's your choice.

I've got 12 hens in my flock and they all love it, and use it. The medium box, the one I got, is rated at use up to 20 hens, they have other sizes too. The floor is made from vinyl coated hardware cloth, that allows any dirt or poop to drop through to the ground. The floor is also adjustable, so you can increase the slope if you need to. Mine is mounted in a chicken tractor, and as luck would have it, a lot of the time the tractor is facing slightly downhill. I chocked up the wire floor at least two inches, so my eggs roll out well, even though the tractor is facing downhill.

They supply a plastic turf mat that has holes for dirt and such to pass through, it stays very clean, with maybe just a feather or two laying on it. Maybe once a month I just pull the mat out and shake it a bit, then just put it back in. I've been in the tractor while the hens were laying, and they have a little ritual where they take a few minutes to scratch around on the turf mat before laying. This ritual actually helps because it breaks up any dirt or whatever on the mat, and helps the debris to drop through the mat and wire bottom, then the debris falls to the floor. I can actually hear the egg roll out after a hen lays.

The perch can be raised, which I found useful when my hens first started laying. One of the hens wanted to roost in the box. For two days as we closed up the tractor in the evening, I'd run her out of the box, and raise the roosting bar to keep her out. It only took two days to break her of this habit she was trying to form, and none of the hens have tried to roost in the box since then. Having the eggs roll away as soon as they're laid, removes the opportunity for a hen to step on the eggs breaking them, or eating them, pooping on them, or getting broody from trying to lay on them.

Since I knew nothing about chickens prior to last summer, I wondered if all the hens would mind using the same nesting box. It turned out to be a complete non-issue, they all use it, and if one is in it, I'll sometimes see another hen nearby, patiently waiting for her turn in the nesting box.

I'm so glad I don't have multiple nesting boxes that I have to check, poop I've got to remove, and space that I would have lost. I mounted my 24 inches off the ground so the hens could graze beneath it, they're about to hop right up onto the perch.

I attached some photos. Mine is the medium nesting box from HenGear, and cost $120.

If you enlarge this photo, you'll notice I placed a piece of plywood under the wire of the collection box, which I can slide out whenever I want. Since my collection box is outside the chicken tractor, and the tractor is out in a meadow, far from the house, I thought it might not be good for any predator that came by, to be able to smell and even almost touch, through the wire bottom, the eggs, if we didn't collect them that day, so I added the plywood bottom, just on the collection box.

Here you can see the mat. I chocked up the front edge of the wire floor in the nesting box about 2 inches because right now, my chicken tractor happens to be on a downward sloped hill, and I needed the extra slope in the nest box floor to compensate for that, so the eggs will roll out. When the chicken tractor is back on level ground, I'll slide the wood chock out, reducing the nest box slope back to its normal slope. It's hard to see here, but the wire floor has a bend in it, compensating for the depth of the turf mat, that keeps the mat and the open wire in the collection box, at the same height.

The privacy curtain is some kind of soft vinyl, it was supplied with the box.

The closest hen to the nesting box is waiting her turn to go in. It might not be possible to see it, but there's a hen in the box laying in this photo.

This shows the collection box having been placed at the rear of the nesting box. This would be the configuration for having a "through the wall collection box" on the outside of the coop or tractor, like mine.