[Stereo]

A while back I mentioned that I was trying out having one house for roosting and one house for laying (with no perches). The idea came to me when I had a pen (electric net) with 2 old houses in it. The hens took to roosting in one and laying in the other. I don't know why but the benefits were obvious.

No sleeping in nest boxes and messing them up.
If you get a broody that you want to stop you can pop them back in the roost house after bedtime and this will 'break' her. Harsh but true.
Nesting house can be fairly lightweight and moved around the run to clean ground, again saving on mucky eggs.

So I tried it. The first is a Heath Robinson affair. A pallet on 4 x 2 legs (so it's a shelter / shade too) with some plywood sides and a hinged plywood roof (a bit of ply and an old door actually). A small access opening in each side (will reduce this to one side only as the wind blows through. Inside are 4 plastic storage boxes full of straw with wooden dividers wedged between them.  So it's a box on legs about 4' x 3' and 18" high with a hinged roof a and a hole for the hens to get in and out.

At first I had issues with the young hens sleeping in the nester and laying in the rooster. But after a bit of after dark shifting about, they got the hang of it and I have to say it's been a roaring success. Even in this mucky weather, I get perfectly clean eggs. If I do get a broody I don't want I can simply spend a few nights transferring her back to the roosting house and that should solve it. I can move the whole thing to fresh grass in minutes. The laying boxes are plastic so not mite friendly and can simply be taken out and cleaned (so far not required).

I'm going to do this with all my flocks albeit with a better design. No more hens sneaking into the nest box and stinking it up after I've gone. Determined broodies solved and their laying area on clean ground so less mucky eggs.

[HesterF]

Be interested to know whether that really works with broodies - won't they just go to ground in the corner of the roosting house instead? The only one I've successfully deterred was one I managed to shut out of all houses by day for a couple of days. More have decided they don't want to sit just after I've decided I'd use them - got my first now and have just told her she can sit on some duck eggs. Taking bets whether she'll give up tomorrow.

My chickens all have access to other houses by day but most of the time return to their own house for laying (they hang out in the other houses in bad weather though). Maybe because the others are less cosy than their own little nest boxes, not sure.

H

[Stereo]

Not proved the broody thing yet, it's just a theory. The roosting house has no next boxes so they would have to sit in the litter.

[Womble]

We don't have nesting boxes in our henhouse either (it's a converted wendy house, and I never got around to making them!). However, the hens free range, so find all sorts of nooks and crannies to lay in, making the eggs hard to find.

To counter this, I made several small broody coops with attached runs, and leave them around the place under bushes etc.

The hens tend to find these and lay in them, thinking they're being oh so sneaky  . It also means that if one goes broody and I want her to sit, she's already in the perfect moveable, fox-proof place  .

[lord flynn]

that is interesting and Womble, sounds like a good set up and possibly one I can emulate! Two of my pens have nest boxes outwith the hen house-because they were packing crates and my DIY skills don't lead to building nest boxes. Works well most of the time-I've even used lidded cat litter trays covered in plastic feed bags to keep them weather proof.

[Womble]

I've even used lidded cat litter trays covered in plastic feed bags to keep them weather proof.

Yes, I tried that once too. You'll never guess what the bloody    did though! 

[Womble]

Hi Stereo, I took some snaps of one of our wee broody coops for you this morning:







There's not much to it really - just a simple frame made from 2x2 timber screwed together, then covered in 6mm plywood and painted. The hardest things to make were the pop-holes, which are a sandwich of two pieces of ply with some spacers in between so that the door (a synthetic roofing slate) can slide between them.

If there is a broody in residence, she can still come and go as she pleases, but I lock her in at night against predators. Once she has chicks, I block off the wee entrance to the run part to keep them all contained until they're ready to go out and about with Mum. She will usually return with them to sleep in the broody coop until they're fully feathered, at which point she'll take them into the main house of her own accord.

All in all, it's a nice low hassle system which works very well for us  .