- Thread starter
- #1,531
I have an elevated chicken coop built on an old boat trailer frame. Here is a picture of my nest box access from the outside....
Where I live in northern Minnesota, we get lots of snow. So my access panel is flat against the wall and never gets loaded down with snow like some other external nest box designs you might see.
Of course, that means my rail system and the nest boxes are inside the coop, and that takes up a little room in the coop. In my case, it's not a big deal because I have almost 8 square feet per bird in the coop. Here is a picture of the rail system for the next boxes....
And what it looks like inside the coop....
This system is really simple to build. The only upgrades I made to the initial build was that I had to add another anti-tip board underneath the dishpans when the chickens got bigger and then I drove one screw through the top lip of the dishpan into the wooden rail so that it move if more than one chicken gets into the box. I seldom have to clean the nest boxes, but if I do, I simply remove the screw and lift out the dishpan.
In my coop setup, I can access the nest boxes for egg gathering on the side, and I can refill the feeder and waterer - which are inside the coop - just by opening the back door. I only go inside the coop maybe twice a year for cleaning.
There is nothing magic about the plastic dishpans as nest boxes. Today, now that I build lots of stuff with pallet and salvaged wood, I might make the nest boxes out of wood and hang them on the rails. Since you have that pneumatic stapler, it would be super easy to build some wood crates and mount them on a rail system. That is, of course, if you end up using this type of nest box design.
Like you said, the chickens really don't care about the nest boxes and just about anything will work for them. What's important is to put together a design that works for you.
FWIW, when I built my coop years ago, I was not yet into pallet projects. But I did have a lot of salvaged wood that I used on this build. At the time of the build, I saved maybe $500 by using salvaged lumber. Given the price of lumber today, that is maybe $1000 to $1500 of salvaged lumber on this build!
Because of my age, I designed everything on my coop to have easy access for me and minimal work effort required for maintenance. From the start, I planned an outside access. In the winter, I can easily gather the eggs without having to open up any big doors or go inside the coop.
One thing I noticed that older John did was to make the tabletop and then sand the heck out of it so all the wood was even. When dealing with pallet wood, you almost always have plank wood of different thickness. Younger John used a thickness planer in his shop. My approach is to build a frame on the outside and then have the pallet wood attached to the frame from the inside. That makes the face you see all the same level, but the backside of the project is where you hide the different thickness of the boards. You don't have to sand or thickness plane the pallet wood if you hide the differences in the back. That's a big time and effort saver.
I hope that was understandable, because I think that type of design is one of the better ideas I came up with in my pallet projects. It might not work for a tabletop, but it will work for lots of pallet projects I build.
Upcoming experiment using the Air Locker AP700 nail puncher...
