Another Chicken Question

[so lucky]

What do you chicken folks use in the nest boxes? My girls kick out all the straw, and one girl has chronically fragile shells, so her eggs would break. So I made "cushions" out of foam and covered with plastic table cloth. They work great for the non-breakage, but the silly girls are scratching the plastic table cloth to shreds, and also the foam. I have tried cedar shavings, and also pine needles. What else should I try? Maybe "leather" upholstry fabric would work, if I can find some for really cheap. Maybe I just need to make the sides of the nest boxes higher, so they can't kick stuff out.

 

[thistlebloom]

Maybe making the sides higher as you suggested would be best. Our nest box is probably 8" - 10" deep before the "lip",and I just kep a layer of shavings in the bottom for insulation, ( our box is added on to the back of the coop ) and then a thick wad of grass hay for them to fluff down into. They don't kick any out. But what is it with the hens that lay those papery shells? I have one that does that too and a lot of times it's broken before I can collect it.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

please don't use cedar shavings around the chickens. you can use cedar for walls and siding of a coop but the shavings have something in them that can make the chickens sick if they ingest them. stick with pine shavings in the next boxes if you can. just fill them up to overflowing. the girls will still kick some out to make a divot for their cushy tushies. i have rabbit nesting boxes that a local made and said they would also work well for chickens. i've seen something similar being sold at my local feed store. these boxes can fit a LF and bantam hen in them at the same time. i currently have 1 broody and another attempting to go broody with her, so i see them often in the same box.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, I solved the problem of them kicking out the bedding material by raising the sides. I've used various things for bedding and prefer a deep bed of straw or hay. The wood shavings just seem so light and the eggs kind of disappear down in them. With the long strands of hay or straw they can make nice nests that hold their shape and pads the egg.

If it's just one hen with the soft shell, that's a hen problem. If it's most of your hens, thats a flock problem. If its most of your hens, offering oyster shell on the side usually makes a big difference if you are not doing it already.

If the rest are fine and its only one, shes either not eating the stuff with calcium or her body is not processing it right. If its just one, I dont have any great words of wisdom. Id still offer oyster shell on the side and see if that helps.

I can be kind of ruthless. A hen doing that would be my next guest to the crock pot. I certainly would not try to hatch any of her eggs, even if the individual egg was OK, in case it is genetic. I dont need the mess in the nests and I dont need one thats eggs break and may teach the others to eat eggs.

Practically any chicken will eat an egg thats opened. I dont consider that an egg eater. Its when they learn to open a good egg to eat it that it becomes a problem.

 

[thistlebloom]

Good advice Ridge. In my situation it's an older hen that has the fragile eggs.. They have oyster shell available at all times, plus crushed eggshell I toss in the pen if they want to pick that up. So she's probably not eating it.

 

[digitS']

I have tried shredded paper, pine needles, sawdust, straw . . . about the best was stredded corrugated cardboard but it is real difficult to tear up .

Egg eating? Darkness. If they can't see it, they won't eat it. A tarp-covered nest box.

Would a redesigned nestbox help? My nestbox area is on a shelf and that is part of the wall. In other words, the wall is wider there so there's not too much choice. I've thought that if I was to go back to having a coop with interior wall space, I would use this, very old design:

And, I'd hang a cover over the openings, which are on both ends of the box.

Steve
sorry, no music if you click that nestbox

 

[bj taylor]

i'm wondering if dried mealworms work well to supply needed calcium. i was having one of my girls give an egg now and then that was rubbery. i've been giving them mealworms to supplement their protein during winter (which they love of course) - but i think as an aside, they might also be benefiting from the exoskeletan and getting calcium 'by accident'.
i use hay in their nest boxes. the boxes have a lip so there's not alot of kicking out - they just make a "nest" in it.

 

[so lucky]

I said I had tried cedar shavings but I meant pine shavings. Yes, they are light and fluffy. My nest box is 3 nests wide. I think I might try making one long nest out of it, where they can get back in the dark. The front would be closed in like that. The "people" opening is flush with the wall, hinged on the bottom edge and opening to the outside. I may have to put a taller barrior (sp?) there too. They all use the same nest, anyway.
It is just this one chicken that lays the fragile eggs. She has laid a few rubbery ones, too. I do have oyster shell calcium out for them at all times. She's just weird. She is the biggest eater, and the quickest to grab the worms when they help me garden. I guess she is the heaviest bodied, so would be the best for the stew pot. But I probably wont.

 

[canesisters]

My nest boxes are just deep plastic totes sitting on the floor of the coop. I put a couple of bricks in the bottom so it won't tip if one of the heffers decides to perch on the edge. Then filled it about halfway with sawdust and topped it with hay. The boxes are tucked in corners under the roost & poop shelf, so it's nice and deep and dark and secluded - which the girls seem to perfer. I just pull the tote out to check for eggs. And - there's room for 2 if the needed.

 

[Mickey328]

We have 2 pretty much identical nest boxes but for whatever reason, they will only lay in one of them...they all love to sleep in both of 'em but will only lay in one, LOL. They too love to "re-arrange the furniture"...one gets in and scratches all the straw out, the next gets in and piles it high.

We took an old front door mat...the kind with the plastic bristles on it designed for wiping your shoes on, cut a piece of it to size and put it in the bottom of the box. Then, put the straw in on top of it. They really can't scratch the mat out of there, so even if there's no straw, the egg doesn't hit the floor and break. When it gets icky, we take it out and hose it off. Works great for us!