The Moment I’ve Been Waiting For! First Egg!!!

[BlueDawnRising]

From my experience hens like some type of bedding in the nest box too. They like to move it around and create a bowl shape. Makes them feel cozy! 31 inches high for the boxes might be too high if you have heavy breeds like Jersey Giants, Brahmas and the like. Too far to jump out and land could lead to foot problems. I have both of those breeds and I have my boxes at 18 inches. Just a thought.

We have a mixed flock from Hoover’s, which I now understand doesn’t have pure breeds so take these labels for what they are worth. We have buff and lavender Orpingtons, Welsummers, Legbars, black copper Marans, prairie bluebell eggers and “Americanas.” We have 19 total. There is a ladder up to the nest box but it isn’t shown in the picture. We had a cat carrier on top of the roost bars we were keeping an injured chicken in and they are laying in it now so I don’t know if the height is an issue. I’m thinking it is nesting material. I will be home tonight and will add straw to the boxes and see if that helps! Thanks for helping! Being new to this chicken thing, I appreciate all responses!

 

[BlueDawnRising]

My boxes are closer to the ground too. And i have a ladder and a ledge for the nesting box that is about 1.5 ft from the bedded floor. I use dried moss (that was used as packing material) for their boxes.

We can can move the box closer if needed but they are laying in a cat carrier we had on top of the roosting bars, much higher than the nesting box, so I’m going to try adding bedding first to see if that fixes the problem. I appreciate your help though and we’ll keep this in mind if the bedding doesn’t work!