Poorly chicken

[debsygooch]

Does anyone have any recommendations for installing/ creating additional nesting boxes as part of their Eglu/WIR setup? The reason I ask is that for the last three mornings I have come out to find one egg in tact and another broken/eaten in the nest box . I think Daisy when going in to lay is particularly clumsy and breaks Dotty's egg when settling down to lay. I have a total of four chickens so want to prevent this happening more regularly as I worry about the mess left in the straw, and the girls getting wet/sticky bottoms.

I have found this product on e-bay and wondered if anyone had any views or opinions they would like to share with me.

 

Thank you for reading this

Edited March 2, 2012 by Guest

[eve]

i have a wooden coop with two nest boxes but found moneypenny kept laying outside. i removed the wood so got one large nest box and bingo she lays inside now.think she needed more room to turn and do her thing she is a hybrid so quite big. i have 4 hens altogether and three laying.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

My girls don't sleep in their eglu so I've removed the large roosting bars and put an Ikea plastic tray in with some cardboard to make a "wall" between it and the proper nest box. It's only an option if they don't sleep in their eglu though!

 

In the past I've used this roll away nestbox to try to prevent egg eating. Doesn't fit into the eglu that well but I managed to cobble something together using a brick and garden wire!

 

Might be a cheaper option for you. That Ebay one looks good but is quite pricey (which is OK if you know it'll work!)

[Patricia W]

Egluntyne has these roll away nest boxes under the cube - if I remember right!

[noyan]

I bought a covered cat litter tray from the range about a year ago. Only cost nine pounds mine use that when the nest box in cube is busy. It's green so match my cube . Have taken the door off though as one of the girls could not work out how to get out once she had got in..

[Egluntyne]

I have three Chick Boxes in my WIR. I find they work well, but the hens do tend not to use the brown one.

[CR666]

I built a nest box out of timber (OSB) and fitted this to the outside of our WIR with an entry hole and a lift up lid, this means I can remove eggs without going into the run, just like the egg port.

 

I am not a joiner or even a skilled amateur, but I do like to tinker and yes it probably took twice as long to construct as it should, and I think it is built to withstand an emu laying in it but hey it is there and does the job.

 

Basically is is a 5 sided box, 1 side open to the WIR, a sloping roof (covered with std roofing felt), the roof is hinged for access. I also fitted a smaller piece of timber inside the box to divide it in 2, this provides an area for shreddings for them to lay.

 

I seem to remember the sheet of OSB originally cost around £12 but was huge so I had loads left over for other projects.

[Plum]

I've got a little wooden house in the run they can use for extra laying space and seeing how many hens can fit in a small space at one time It's also extra accomodation for sick bay, introductions etc.,

[MaggieMcHen]

I have a plastic dog crate on the floor in the corner of my WIR it has a divider so it provides two lovely nest boxes - it has the bonus that as it is on the ground they none of them want to sleep in it! I also have an open Eglu and run inside the WIR for birds that need isolating for one reason or another and at the moment my two creamy leg bars are laying their lovely blue eggs in there. We wondered why we'd had no eggs from them for a day or so!!!