Nests Iteration 4 to Front Roll Away style

[aart]

I still get several eggs eaten each week.

Is the 'waste' build up coinciding with the egg eating?

 

[Ted Brown]

Is the 'waste' build up coinciding with the egg eating?

Not always. I thought it was related but I have moved the offending hen each night for the past five and got an egg eaten. This evening she was on the roosts.

 

[Ted Brown]

I thought an update was in order.

I have successfully broken the nest sleeper habit by moving the hen to the roosts just after dusk, took 7 evenings. All eggs now roll into the box without getting hung up on waste.

However, I am still getting a few eggs broken. I was gathering eggs and saw one of the hens put her head through the nest side opening and almost reach the end of the egg box. The eggs that get broken are not eaten just the shell broken.

I measured the depth of the box at just over 8" with the opening at 2.5". Seems just short enough for a hen to reach through and break the egg but not allow the contents to be eaten.

I will redo the floor to add another inch of box depth and see if that solves the problem.

 

[debid]

I thought an update was in order.

I have successfully broken the nest sleeper habit by moving the hen to the roosts just after dusk, took 7 evenings. All eggs now roll into the box without getting hung up on waste.

However, I am still getting a few eggs broken. I was gathering eggs and saw one of the hens put her head through the nest side opening and almost reach the end of the egg box. The eggs that get broken are not eaten just the shell broken.

I measured the depth of the box at just over 8" with the opening at 2.5". Seems just short enough for a hen to reach through and break the egg but not allow the contents to be eaten.

I will redo the floor to add another inch of box depth and see if that solves the problem.

How much slope did you end up with? The other thing I thought of is that the egg might be hanging up and then rolling after it gets pecked. I had to boost my angle more than I thought I would to ensure rolling every time.

 

[Ted Brown]

How much slope did you end up with? The other thing I thought of is that the egg might be hanging up and then rolling after it gets pecked. I had to boost my angle more than I thought I would to ensure rolling every time.

My floor drops 3" over the 24" width of the floor; pitch is 12.5 degrees.

I have seen that the eggs can get stopped/moved by the hens. Once stopped an egg can just sit until harvested by me. Notwithstanding, my incidents of egg eating is much reduced.

 

[debid]

My floor drops 3" over the 24" width of the floor; pitch is 12.5 degrees.

I have seen that the eggs can get stopped/moved by the hens. Once stopped an egg can just sit until harvested by me. Notwithstanding, my incidents of egg eating is much reduced.

I started with 3.5" over 24" and then added 2" more at the top that drops over the first 12. Too lazy to do the math but the eggs are rolling every time now. I was worried they wouldn't like it if they could feel the slant in the floor so I was trying to keep it minimal but they don't seem bothered at all.

 

[Ted Brown]

@debid thank you, interesting. Have you had any breakage?

I left this morning @8:30 and got home close to 9pm. I collected 11 eggs, 3 were in the nest space the rest rolled out. No breakage.