At least that’s the way I always do it, in matters agricultural. I’m from Detroit, and grew up assuming chickens came into existence as lumps of meat in a supermarket cooler. Everything I’ve learned about actually raising chickens in the past few years, I got from a couple of books or from correcting mistakes.
Before I built the coop, I did read a couple of books. Really. But the thing is, unless the book says why you should do a particular thing a particular way, I’m probably just going to go ahead and do it (what seems like) the easy way. In this case, instead of building specific nesting boxes I saw no reason not to just wall off part of the coop’s floor and fill it with straw. No books say to do it this way. In my defense, no books told me not to.
It seemed to work fine. At first. It was about twice as big as the chickens wanted or needed, but they didn’t complain.
Lately, though, there’s been a problem. The older chickens are molting, which means they’re putting all their internal calcium into growing feathers. What few eggs they’re producing are very thin-shelled. I got a lot of breakage.
Then these damn hooligan kids came along. To them, a nesting box is just a comfy place to stand. They shit all over the straw and trampled all over the eggs. Unless I happened to come running when I heard a hen lay an egg, the breakage was pretty much 100%. This was not acceptable. I tried explaining the matter to the pullets, but they just pecked me to see if I had or was food.
So this morning I built an actual nesting box, mostly from parts I pulled off old pallets that were otherwise headed for the woodshed.
I pulled out the floor partitions and swept out all the old straw. That side door was intended for collecting eggs, but all it ever got used for was occasionally sweeping out straw. Now, if all goes to plan, it’ll assume egg-collecting duties.
Mounted the new nesting box across the side door, high enough to keep casual strollers out of it but low enough that it’s an easy step from the roosting branches.
Filled it with cleanish straw, took my tools out of the coop, and stood back. The ladies hate it when I make changes, but they found this one interesting.
I guess we’ll see if it’s an improvement.
ETA: Well, at least it didn’t take the hens long to figure out that this is the new deal.
Accuse me of speciesism if you must, but I have observed that “figuring things out” is not generally a chicken’s best point of sail. So I’m always relieved when they do what’s good for them, rather than some other random thing.
Oh, to have a dollar for every variation I’ve tried. sigh The nesting box that proved the most effective for me was one built with a coarse nylon screen bottom, at a slight angle so the eggs rolled toward the collection point. The box shouldn’t be any larger than needed to contain one hen.. The screen bottom helps keep the nest from becoming a gooey poop mess. Cooler in summer too. More straw might be in order for your winter.
I didn’t put any straw into the nest boxes, but it can’t hurt unless there is too much. What should happen is that the egg rolls away from the center as soon as the hen stands. Another hen can then enter the nest without having the first egg front and center to be stepped on. If more than a few hens are using the nests, more frequent collection of eggs is probably wise, or one nest for each hen, or at least for each pair.
Your chicken digs are plum fancy. My chickens would have been very impressed. I cut the side out of a Rubbermaid tote and placed it on the ground in their chicken tractor. The only time it had hay in it was in the winter so they had a place to get in out of the blowing snow/ice. I liked the tote because I could pull it out and hose it out/off when it got nasty.
I keep about a dozen hens . My nest boxes consist of three milk crates on their side next to each other. There is a 1×4 screwed across the bottom edge to keep in eggs and bedding and a piece of plywood screwed in a slant from the top edge to the wall to keep them from roosting on top and pooping through the top of he boxes. The hens seem to like them.
We used milk crates for Landlady’s chickens, set up just that way. Until they started breaking the eggs that got lodged in the crate holes.