Because of the heat we had here in NC and a very violent predator attack (of 30+ birds in that area of our farm, only 6 survived), my 10 girls (some of the survivors and others from another pen) stopped laying completely. I reenforced a coup with 1/2" hard wear cloth, the welded wire kind, added a roost and cut out a divider in the middle. Since they free range every day, I feel the 12x4x4 coup is plenty big for the 12 birds in it, but the issue I had, was there was no place for a nest box!
The poor girls were laying everywhere! One was so bold as to lay an egg in the waterer...
The only pre-built boxes I have are 2 - 6 hole boxes with the auto roll out and a 2x3 stack that was too big for the portable coup... My DH wasn't helping me with a solution instead, he was enjoying a computer game on our tv...
I went down to the old coup on the farm that has a total of three walls and no roof to see how hard removing some "bucket" boxes the previous owner had in place... They were NOT moving!
Then I remembered some clean-ish buckets and I was off on a mission! With a basset hound named Delilah and a Lab/dalmatian named Disaster in tow, I grabbed two buckets and an old drawer from a desk the military didn't want any more and...
TA DA! Redneck nest boxes!
I added here for the silkies that "Photo bombed" my nest box images...
The head shot is Mustachio (think Pistachio but with an M)
They all look kind of nervous about it... I know there is a black mixed in with the whites... there are two black a blue and a buff all together with them... I waiting to see if the one black is a roo, then I'll separate those three (Blues and blacks)
The poor girls were laying everywhere! One was so bold as to lay an egg in the waterer...
The only pre-built boxes I have are 2 - 6 hole boxes with the auto roll out and a 2x3 stack that was too big for the portable coup... My DH wasn't helping me with a solution instead, he was enjoying a computer game on our tv...
I went down to the old coup on the farm that has a total of three walls and no roof to see how hard removing some "bucket" boxes the previous owner had in place... They were NOT moving!
Then I remembered some clean-ish buckets and I was off on a mission! With a basset hound named Delilah and a Lab/dalmatian named Disaster in tow, I grabbed two buckets and an old drawer from a desk the military didn't want any more and...
TA DA! Redneck nest boxes!
I added here for the silkies that "Photo bombed" my nest box images...
The head shot is Mustachio (think Pistachio but with an M)
They all look kind of nervous about it... I know there is a black mixed in with the whites... there are two black a blue and a buff all together with them... I waiting to see if the one black is a roo, then I'll separate those three (Blues and blacks)
