What to clean egg covered nest box with

[booth2010]

I have 2 nest boxes, a 3’ long roll out and the typical 12”x12” you can find at TSC. 7 or 8 of the hens would use the 3’ and 2 habitually laid on the floor so I built and installed the 12”x12”. Now all but 1 use the little one and every day I’m getting 1, sometimes 2, broken eggs. The eggs are crushed so I’m not sure if they’re stepping on them or intentionally breaking them to eat. I am going to get some oyster shell today because I found an egg with an extremely thin shell so maybe that’ll help. But anyways on to the question, how should I clean the bottom of the 12”x12” box? The pine shavings always end up on the door so there is a coating of egg on the bottom of it. I was thinking just warm soapy water may do the trick.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I have a few of those boxes. Eggs do Sherbrooke in them a lot. I use a hand held garden how to pull the mess out, either into a bucket of just on the floor. I personally get frustrated with those boxes. My other ones my husband built are better, although this time of year I still get some busted eggs because there are so darn many.

 

[aart]

I line the bottom of my nests with a piece of vinyl flooring, one in each nest and an extra to swap out quickly. I use lots of straw as bedding and that catches most of a broken egg and the vinyl catches the rest.

But in your situation...I would remove the other nests are force them to use the roll out.
How many layers do you have?
Maybe you need a second roll out nest?

Oh, as far as cleaning egg off wood, lots of water scrubbing and drying time needed.
Hopefully nests are easy to remove from coop to clean them.
Nothing much stinkier than old egg in a nest.

 

[Toothpick]

I’ve had a few break in the nest. I have enough bedding in there I can just replace it. I also had a few break on the nest box itself, the bare wood. For this I used a paper towel to get up as much as I could. Then I used the coop bedding (pine shavings, sweet PDZ, chicken poop) and rubbed it around and left the spot covered. It’s just a small spot anyway. No scrubbing with soap/water for me. I mainly didn’t want them thinking they could eat it because I’ve seen them doing that too.