[Justin]

I've had to build a new chicken house for our new girls as the old ones are bullies and won't let them into the old house, which is also a bit too small for all of them. As it's during lockdown, I could only build with what I could scavenge from the barn. The house seems fine and they're very happy in there, the problem might be the nest boxes. I've made them out of sheep lick buckets and they're 10"x10" and 14" high and I'm thinking that might be a smidge small.

a couple of the girls are only just starting to lay, we've only had them 3 weeks, and we've found the occasional egg on the floor of the house. I've put straw and a fake egg in each of the nest boxes but so far they've not been using them. Any suggestions of how best to encourage them or are the boxes just going to be too small?

Thanks.

[Blondie]

I can’t comment on size as I’ve only ever kept bantams but I would say that the best boxes are very light.

I thought that nest boxes were suppose to be quite dark? Perhaps try and make the nest boxes darker. (Thinking perhaps paint them black or put a covering over them)

Also my hens did sometimes lay in odd places, especially when they were first starting as it wasn’t like they were often caught short.

[arobwk]

Assuming lock-down is over by August, can I book the week starting Sat 22nd [member=42897]Justin[/member] ?  LOL


Leaving aside the question-mark over nest boxes, that's a pretty impressive build from a barn scavenge !

[Black Sheep]

Size is fine - I've seen people use the lick buckets similarly to you and the dimensions look pretty similar to the ones we have.

Am sure plenty of the various websites selling poultry gear will have measurements for the ones they sell that you could compare to.

Worth making sure that they aren't roosting in them and getting them mixed up as a roost rather than a nestbox. The lower roosting bar in the picture might be too low, or alternatively use the remaining bits of the lids to close them off at night perhaps?

Great job though :-)

Amazing what you can make from old lick buckets - I reckon they are approaching baler twine in usefulness terms!

[Justin]

They're definitely not roosting in them, they roost on the highest roost bar up near the roof.

I'll try painting them to make them darker and see if that helps and it's good to know the size isn't unreasonable. I had a look online and most seem to be 12x12" and about the same height so I hoped these slightly smaller ones would work.

Thanks for all the comments, I was pretty pleased when I put it all together, amazing how much timber you stash at the back of the barn after a project.