Drop Away Nest Box Work In Progress

[tennisbike]

Hello,
A newbie on BYC here but been reading these threads on raising chickens for a couple of years.

I thought I share with everyone my 2nd nest box progress. We have been having egg eating problem, even after I changed the original nest box to a roll away design. Somehow one or more hen has been able to peck and eat their eggs with the the eggs rolled into a cavity at the end of the box. The picture shows my modification but before I added a little "curtain" at the edge.



(First Roll-Away modification)

My wife got so frustrated cleaning the box, and not able to get rid of the smell and stuck on egg, that she demanded that I make another one, a better one. So instead of rolling away, the egg now drop down out of reach of the hens.


Egg collecting tray/drawer: The 1/2 mesh was formed over wooden mold. Still needs to be stapled and padding added.


Bird eyes view shows the entrance of the hen from the top. The diverter wall hopefully forces the hen to orient itself head out and the egg would drop down and roll to the back of the tray/drawer.


The nest box is hung using french cleat outside the coop wall. Thus eggs can be picked up without having to enter the coop/run area.

I got the idea of the egg drop away from probably BYC forum, now I just hope it works to eliminate the egg eating problem. I probably would not do it this way again with so much angle pieces making lining the pieces together difficult.

If there are any interest, I can show some of my sketches/drawings I used for building it.

Cheers, Richard

 

[J-Sanders]

Nicely done. Is the AstroTurf enough cushion?

 

[tennisbike]

I purchased and used the nesting pad from QC supply, mainly because it was cheap. It works fine as liner or even without. Currently, the nest box has nothing as liner and the roll away board was removed as well. So I question the need for any liner/pad for the nest box. For the new box, I would like to slow the egg down before hitting the front. The pad does not seem to do much slowing.

If I have time, I would check the next box all the time. Definite Will cut down on broken/eaten eggs.

For the new box, I calculated that the egg would hit the front wall probably as hard or harder then dropping down to the tray. But I did not line the wall in the previous box and the length of the run/ramp was about 13 to 14".

The current thought is simply drape 2 layer of microfiber towel on the impact zone on the wall and two layers right at the drop zone. The extra thickness also works to slow down the egg and keep the egg from coming back under the opening.

Any ideas?

 

[aart]

Do the angled pieces work to divert the egg into the drawer?
Why not just make the drawer wider?

 

[tennisbike]

Thanks for linking this to the other nest box thread.

Excellent question!

Making the drawer bigger is perfectly fine. The reason I had it diverted was because my wife ran a hose through the coop wall for the water. The hose came out in right below and to the right of the old box. At the time, I was not sure how tall the new boxes were going to be, so I made sue the box would clear the hose/hole by making the drawer narrower. At the end, looks like the finished boxes are not that tall.



I am also hoping the diverter angled wall would encourage the hens to lay facing away from the cavity. I do not like the idea of the egg free rolling from the high side of the ramp/floor. When I calculate the speed of impacting the front wall, it would be like dropping the eggs free fall for 3 to 4 inches. When I padded the wall, I could still hear a hollow impact sound, and that was from bouncing back to the edge of the floor. So I padded the edge with one .09" strip of tool box liner.

My thought now is that this is probably too elaborate a setup to duplicate. Luckily I had my summer free from the day job to work on this.

Today is the first day! Keeping my finger crossed.
Hmm.. I see now that the roost bar is a bit low and the opening not very high after the french cleat setup.

 

[Nancy Shoemaker]

I am very interested in receiving your sketches/drawings for building your drop down egg nesting box.

Please email them to [email protected]

Thank you!
Nancy