Turning nest box into dust bath box?

[RumneyRoost]

I'll start by saying that I'm in Canada and I've always struggled with being able to provide a dust bathing area for the girls through the fall/winter/spring. The run is frozen and while it is covered it still gets wet so an outdoor dust bath is out of the question from the end of October until the end of April or May.

I have put a container with sand in their coop but it takes up so much room, it has to sit right in the middle or else they get poop in it and then it freezes. Today I had an Aha! moment. I have 3 nest boxes but they only use one of them. Do you guys think if I put sand in one of them they might use it to bathe? It's about 12"x12"x12" with a 4" lip. They wouldn't be able to really stretch out, but I'm thinking it's best case scenario.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Hmm, guess you could try it? It's tight but maybe they'd use it. Worst case scenario they don't use it and you could just remove the dust bathing material and turn it back into a nest box