Community Nest Box

[Cuz-Pat]

My 15 "Buff" girls are soon going to be needing nest boxes. They will be 5 months old on August 15th so I'd like to go ahead and get a box or boxes in place.

I have never heard of a "community" nest box until I started doing a search for nest boxes. At first, my plans were to construct some wooden boxes with dividers in them. After reading what little info I could find on the "community" nest boxes, I have become very interested in maybe going that route.

My birds are in a 20' wide x 30' long pen with wire that is 6' in height. I have a nice coop inside that they roost in each night. I'd like a box that I can attach to the backside of my coop.

What I have in mind is a box that would have a sloped top that would be hinged so that you could open it up to access the inside of the box to put in nesting material and also to retrieve the eggs.

I have no idea as to the size to build this box? It would be used by 15 hens. What height, length & width should the box be? What about the opening? Round hole or square? Hole dimensions? How high should the box be off the ground? Would it be okay to build it out of pressure treated lumber/plywood so that it would last?

Hope to get some help from some of the many experts that I'm sure are members of this forum. Thanks in advance for any help you may offer!

 

[ChickenCop]

Sounds like a cool idea. What I have found from my end...I had two regular metal nest boxes. One had square holes and the other had round holes with a small entry to it. It seemed to have given the hens more security and privacy than the square hole one. I ended up getting rid of the round hole for the bottom was rotting out and the square hole had more slots in it.
I still have several hens that will find a spot behind feed bins and the door laying eggs as if the privacy was no longer there.
Wish you the best with it but I wanted to share what has happened to me and I dont think the community box would work for my birds.

 

[Annabella]

You could still have the design you are thinking and with little effort just putting a few dividers in, allows the girls who want, to find a private spot of their own.
I think the rule of thumb is one nesting box for 4 -5 birds. So two dividers in there would give you three nesting boxes.

 

[CoyoteMagic]

I had built a bank of nestboxes.They all chose to lay in one kitty litterbox. Several at the same time

 

[krobin04]

My kids and I built a three-box nest box. It has dividers that can come out and they don't reach the roof, because our hens like to move from one to the other, and when they had chicks the dividers were removed so they could spread out. At one time we had three hens with eggs in one nest! so this way they can stay together but have their own nest. Also, we left the back open because we have black snakes and this way the hens won't feel trapped. The front and rear boards are 6 inches tall then open to the roof.