A Nesty Mess

One of Ian's very first handyman projects here on Gael Glen Farm was to build wooden nesting boxes for our hens to lay their eggs in.  Some farmers use large Tupperware plastic containers or milk crates, but Ian knew that nothing was too good for my ladies and built them the Cadillac of all chicken nesting boxes.

 We decided on six nests because we wanted to make sure there was enough room for everyone.  Little did we know at the time that it doesn't matter how many nests you give the hens, they all want to lay in the same one.  Often times five of the nesting boxes will be empty and we will find three hens all crammed into the same nest at the same time!

There are two hens in the right nest -
you can see the head of one and the tail of the other.

The nests open from the front into the chickens' part of the coop and have little flap doors at the back that open into the humans-only part of the coop.  That way squeamish egg collectors don't actually have to go into the area with the chickens to collect the eggs.  This is really good for little kids who are fascinated by the eggs but still a bit scared of the hens (and the biting duck - and rightly so!).

Initially we experimented with lining the bottom of the nests with different materials.  First we tried straw but the hens simply scratched it out.  Then we tried nothing but we got lots of broken eggs from the hens laying their eggs right on the wooden bottom.  Finally, we settled on wood shavings.  The hens scrape some of them out but tend to leave most in the nest which provides both a soft cushion for the eggs to land on and an absorbent layer for any broken egg insides.

Regrettably, the hens just don't seem to value their fancy nests they way we'd like them to and they frequently defile the nesting boxes with broken eggs and chicken poop - creating one nesty mess!  While blocking the nests at nighttime does reduce the amount of mess, it is still necessary to scrape the soiled wood shavings out of the nests on approximately a biweekly basis and replace them with fresh ones.

Nest cleaning tool.

Nice clean nesting boxes lined with fresh wood shavings.

The hens get very confused when you tamper with their nests - especially when you open the back door flaps for an extended period of time.  They love to try and sneak out through the back door and into the forbidden territory of the human part of the coop.

Chicken: "What is going on here?"

Chicken trying to make her escape into forbidden territory through the back door.
Can these ladies ever move when they put their mind to it!

The long and short of it is that clean nests = clean eggs = happy farmer.  So it is all worth it in the end.