roosting polls and nesting boxes

today i needed to better a fix the roosting bars in the chicken coop because i am getting ready to install nesting boxes for the second time. i had purchased milk crates at the local hardware store (i must add in defense of trying to embody that homesteading spirit, that i tried to get them for free from the dairy company my husband works for but apparently they are in short supply there. at least i went with the local store, but next time, i will try craig's list or freecycle or the salvage yard.) and zip tied them to the walls of our hoop house coop. after trying to fill them with pine shavings, i realized that the holes in the crates would not make this possible.

a few days later i managed to swing by the feed store to pick up straw. the clerk at the store took me out back to show me what a bale of straw looked like--how much straw actually came in a bale for $8-- and then suggested that i could collect the straw that had fallen on the concrete ground for free and handed me a brown bag. wow, how kind, i thought! what customer service! and she didn't make me feel like a dummy, either. corrected me gently when i referred to the straw as hay. shrugged her shoulders when i told her i would just take a bale. my mom was waiting in the car, probably wondering how it was possible that her "queenie" was shopping at a feed store, with a sleeping claire, and we had one more stop to go, plus i wasn't quite sure i could gather quite enough straw for 6 (probably should have 8) nesting boxes. did i tell her i have 30 chickens?

so i thought i was finished when i added the straw and tucked the ladies in for night that evening. i came back in the morning to find straw on the ground and poop all over the milk crates. back to the drawing board.

maybe i could line those crates with cut up left over tarp? yes, tarp! no maybe just a garbage bag would be easier. i asked matt what he suggested. leftover hardware cloth. great idea! he realized that the chickens would quickly scratch through any plastic liner. so out of the coop with the nesting boxes. cut the zip ties and back to the barn where they still sit many days later.

but back to the roosting polls. i did a quick search one night this week on the backyard chicken forum and google to find more info about nesting boxes. ooh, i was tantalized by nesting boxes i found pre-made. how beautiful they looked. no, lisa, do not buy those! thank goodness a few clicks later i found more frugal folks posting ideas about making nesting boxes from items found in the home already such as baskets and plastic wash bins. I noted that one person suggested that nesting boxes be well below roosting polls because chickens will naturally gravitate to the highest perch possible. plus i had learned in boulder that the roosting bar should not be placed over the nesting box unless one wanted their fresh eggs covered in poop. i needed to raise my bars and fix the ones that had fallen already. i managed to do that today. i worried that the roosts would be too high, but when shutting the chickens in this evening, i noted that most were perched on the highest poll. yay!

my plan for the week is to get those boxes lined with the hardware cloth.