It's kind of sad to see them cramming two chickens into a nest and the others waiting in line on the perches. See chickens can be a little silly.
They say that chickens don't have preferences to nesting boxes. They say you need 1 nesting box per 4 birds. We have 40 chickens that are fully mature and laying eggs. So we should need 10 boxes. Well we have 10 boxes but the girls seem to prefer 5 boxes in particular. But not all the ladies, just about 20 of them.
It's ridiculous. They could very easily choose the box to the right or to the left. They are the same material, the same size. But no, they like the top left two and the bottom right two. So they lay on the ground in front of the nest boxes waiting to get inside.
The time came for us to open up their options. And we have 25 more birds who will need boxes available to them in a couple of months. The brooder pen is really much bigger than it needs to be and we will only be using it to brood chicks every 2 to 3 years. So we're going to use it for more nest space in the mean time.
We didn't want to spend money on materials, the chicken enterprise has cost a bit more than we anticipated. My husband is a bit of a hoarder. And not particularly good at organizing. So all sorts of things are tucked away in various cubbyholes throughout our property.
This happens to be a good thing when you're building housing for animals. They aren't picky as long as it works. So we rounded up 12 five gallon buckets and created a wall of lovely nest boxes. They fit perfect four across three rows high.
Now if they can just use them.
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