Nesting box questions

[susan]

We got the coop today and it's put together. It's really made more for rabbits and has no nesting boxes or roost. Mike made a roost for them. The floor slides out for cleaning so we can't attach nesting boxes to it. I'm thinking about tiny cat little pans that are about 8-9"x 12". New of course. I could fit one in each corner right inside the door. Easy to reach for eggs, cleaning and I can take them out to move that floor to clean it. Now, the next question, what to put in them. I don't have hay or straw available this time of year. We have lots of pine needles, grass clippings and I've got kind of a straw from bags of old turnip seeds that never got processed. Any ideas. It will be several days before we get them out into it. We still have to rebuild the underpinning on the back of the house and rebuild the gate to the fence. The wood on it rotted.

Susan

[Valerie]

From what I've seen, they like to have some kind of walls around them. Mine get real picky about anybody else watching when they're laying. I guess laying an egg is a very private thing. Then again, some will just lay on the floor if all the seats are taken.

You probably have some time to work on the nests, though. Are they about 8 wks old now?

[Cyngbaeld]

Get covered cat litter boxes. Anything soft will do for nesting. You might want to put a scrap of carpet on the floor of the boxes in case they push all the hay or straw to the side. Keeps them from laying on the plastic.

[Granny Smith]

I use milk crates about half-full of hay for nesting boxes. I only have 2, but they only use one of them - the red one. Maybe they don't like blue.

[Valerie]

Ain't it funny how picky they are about that?! I have three and mine will fuss and carry on if they have to use the one on the far right. Everyone wants the one on the left and they'll settle for the middle.

[weg]

I have 3 milk crates.One is new and the little banty hen that is low hen on the totem pole is laying in it.

[Granny Smith]

I switched the two milk crates today, just to see what they would do. The red one was on the right, farthest from the door. Today they all laid in the blue one, so it must be the position rather than the color. Can they even see color?

[Valerie]

I've heard they can see red but not blue. That's why they make that blue stuff to put on their booboos, so they don't see the blood and eat each other.

[Granny Smith]

Good thing we don't have blue snakes.

[joanfromzone6]

May 10, 2013 20:17:37 GMT -5 Granny Smith said:

Good thing we don't have blue snakes.

and, above all, that little placard you make up to hang over the opening to the nest box - the one that says NEST BOX - do NOT use blue paint -

[Valerie]

Speaking of which, I saw on a website not long ago where a lady sewed curtains for her nestboxes. I kid you not. That woman must be desperate for things to do.

[Granny Smith]

Oh, my word... That's crazy. Mine are lucky I put something in there for them to lay in. I really only did it because the eggs kept rolling out the door and breaking.

[Valerie]

I saw these nifty plastic mats in FarmTek's catalog for nestboxes. I think all they are is that green doormat stuff, you know the kind that is plastic and almost fluffy on your feet? It's cut in squares. It's supposed to cushion the eggs and be easy to hose off when it gets dirty. I'm sure a person could get one of those green welcome mats (they used to come with a plastic flower stuck on them, years ago!) at the dollar store and cut it down.

[susan]

My SIL suggested we check at Dollar Tree for containers to use. I haven't been in there for a while, but I seem to remember they carry some that look like small milk crates. What ever we use has to be able to fit in the corners and taken out when we move the floor to clean. So now what can I put in them? Cut dry grass? With all this rain the yard will be like mowing a hay field by the time we get to it this next week. We've got to get wood to make new underpinning and the wood rotted on the gate to the fence, so Mike has to rebuild that too. So the girls aren't going out to their new coop for a while.

Susan

[Valerie]

I put pine shavings in mine, but that's just because that's also what I put on the floor of the coop. We do the deep litter thing. When one of them has an accident and poops in the nest, it's easy to clean out because it clumps up. Much easier than when I used to use hay. I've heard most anything soft will work, though. I think it's more for cleanliness and to prevent breakage than anything.