When people are looking for good plans for chicken coops, one of the things that comes up is nest boxes. That’s not somewhere for your chickens to sleep – they’ll be perfectly happy roosting on a perch – it’s somewhere convenient for them to lay their eggs. Chicken will lay eggs just about anywhere though, so do you need nest boxes to be part of your chicken coop design or not?
Let’s look at things from the chicken’s point of view. She’s not laying eggs for you at all – she’s laying eggs to make more chickens! If you don’t take the eggs away, she’ll sit on them and try to hatch them. She’ll stop laying completely. So from her point of view she wants somewhere where she thinks the eggs will be protected – hidden from predators – and warm.
If your chickens are free-range, with access to anywhere they like, they’ll just as easy lay eggs in a hedge, a corner of a barn, an abandoned car… they really don’t care what it looks like as long as it serves its purpose. In this case, incorporating nest boxes within your plans for chicken coops would seem like a good idea – so at least you know where the eggs are likely to be!
If you’ve got an enclosed chicken run, maybe nest boxes aren’t so important. After all, anywhere within the coop will be safe. Well yes, certainly more safe than out in the yard somewhere, but how convenient? For one, depending on the size and structure of your chicken coop they could be awkward to reach. If you have a small, portable coop (sometimes called a chicken tractor) you may think you’ve only a small area to look in, but then you’re looking for eggs among straw or wood shavings that are soiled by your hens too – you don’t want to be doing that all the time! Good chicken tractor plans have nest boxes built in.
If you have a large hen house, having nesting boxes accessible from the outside is ideal. It doesn’t guarantee they’ll always be clean but it is quick and much more convenient than having to go in there all the time – probably hunched up and maybe risking standing on a hidden egg. Chickens soon get used to an area to lay in, provided you give them what they need, so it’s beneficial to both of you.
Assuming that you are going to build your own, rather than buying one, a good set of plans for chicken coops should have considered nest boxes. There are really no negatives – apart from a bit of time and materials for their construction – and lots of positives, as long as you take into account the comfort of your hens. Happy hens lay more eggs, so why wouldn’t you want to give them the best surroundings you can? We’ll look at exactly what makes good nest boxes in another article soon.