Chicken Coop Nesting Boxes

Chicken coop nesting boxes are available in several different sizes and shapes. What you want to achieve with these boxes is have your hens ready with a clean, dry and dark place where they can safely lay their eggs. If you're building your chicken coop for the eggs the hens will lay, then good nesting boxes are a must to have, unless you want to find eggs all over the place. The problem with it is that you would never really know when an egg is freshly laid or not.

Here are a couple points of consideration for a really good nesting box for your chicken

When you add a nesting box to the coop, it should be added to the side in a dark corner that is quite, clean and comfortable.

When it comes to size, every 2 to 4 hens need 1 nesting box. You don't have to have a box for each hen, as they don't lay their eggs at the same time. As for the actual box size, the hens will need to be comfortable in the space, so the smaller size it should be is 12x12x12 inches. Usually building a larger box is much better and brings better results.

The material that the nesting boxes for your chicken coops need to be made of either plastic or pre-made metal. While some people are also using wood, they are easier to clean than wood and they can be easily disinfected with bleach. Of course their price is a bit higher than that of other materials. I've actually seen some people do nesting boxes out of their cat litter boxes, or even a regular plastic container. Just use your creative side of mind and you'll have a good box in no time, with no extra money involved in getting it.

Sometimes the front of the box will have a roost bar or step so that the chicken has a place to jump right before going in the box. Many people also add a 'lip' which will make sure that the bedding material and the eggs will not be pushed out of the box.

The fresh daily bedding made of straw or pine shavings are the best for your hens to lay their eggs. This way the eggs will be securely in place waiting to be collected. The bedding should be rotated out to the compost pile to clean out any manure droppings. Also it can easily happen that an egg has cracked, so that should be cleaned out right away as well, else you will have a lot of ants to deal with later on.

The top of the box should be at an angle so the chicken will not sleep or roost on it. This is to avoid any mess that might be created in the process.

You might want to place the box a few inches above the ground however it should not be as high as to encumber the chicken to getting in and out of it. Mounting the box at about 18 to 24 inches off the ground is usually the ideal height. Building chicken coops is easy and once you have your coop, you need to make sure that the nesting box is placed in the darkest area of your coop.

Make sure that the eggs are collected every day from the nesting boxes. You can use a recycled egg carton for that. Once collected, avoid washing your fresh eggs because they have a protecting film on them from the hen so the eggs will be fresh for a while. Of course if you find manure on the eggs, wash them before putting them in the fridge for keeping until you're ready to use them in cooking.

As most hens will start laying their eggs around 6 months, you can easily put the nesting boxes much earlier on in the coop. The hens will get used to them and figure them out, and when the time comes, they will go right in to lay their eggs.