Why Not the Nest Boxes
Why Not the Nest Boxes
When we so lovingly built our chicken house, the nest boxes took some thought. What wall to put them on to minimize a possible draft? How high in relation to the roosts? What size to build them dimensionally? We thought it out well, we consulted books and the internet. Well, the chicken ladies have other ideas.
We painted them red so they would be fun to lay eggs in. And about half of the girls use them regularly. The other half..... not so much.
This girl is laying in a nest they built out of a straw bale in the barn. About 6 to 8 eggs per day are found here.
Another three or four are found in this garbage can full of chopped up goat floor and hay. This will go into my compost tumbler this spring. I just dont seem to have the heart to take away a favorite nesting area. They dont seem to mind the fake fawn much either. That thing is another story all together.
This is a one ton grain tote that I filled with clean wood shavings for winter use in the chicken house. The chicks climb right in and down into it about 3 foot. I find a couple eggs per week in this thing. Silly chickens.
And finally we have our first broody hen. She is one diligent mama wanna-be. She has been at this sitting thing for weeks. I thought she was sick and dieing when she first started and even took her to the vet. He got a good laugh out of it, refused to take my money and thanked me for being one of the first to ever bring him a chicken. I guess folks around here eat their questionable birds. I happen to like mine too much to do that but I can see their point. Plus my muscle is in Alaska and I cannot do that kind of deed myself. I have toyed with slipping some day old chicks under her at night so she will finally stop this madness but I dont have the heart to possibly go out and find that she wasnt a good mother after all. Seems a little like murder if the experiment does not work. I have been kicking her off the nest all day long on the days that I am home. She seems to like it in there.
Why Not the Nest Boxes
