{"id":13417,"date":"2015-12-30T16:04:33","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T16:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=13417"},"modified":"2015-12-30T16:04:33","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T16:04:33","slug":"preparing-for-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=13417","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

All winter we have had only one girl laying and the process has been calm with Butterscotch choosing her spot in either of the little coop nest boxes.<\/p>\n

In spring and summer we could have up to eight girls laying and at any time a possible two girls going broody. We will need more nest boxes. We had already made another two nest boxes and installed them inside the chicken shed but I think our girls are so used to having their nest boxes outside that I am not sure they would know to go and look in the chicken shed for them. They only go in the chicken shed to roost or to help me clean. It seems that once I open the big door and busy myself in there it suddenly becomes a desirable place to be.<\/p>\n

I know that conventional chicken coops have their nest boxes inside but our girls have always been used to having their nest boxes outside and I think this is what they expect.<\/p>\n

We decided to make some slight alterations. We decided that the nest boxes we had made would need a bit more cover over the top of the boxes (as they will be outside and will need to let in less light) and then we would put them on top of the outside nest boxes to give two storey nest boxes (a block of four).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The two little coop nest boxes on the chicken’s patio area<\/p><\/div>\n

The ramps and openings face the back so that the boxes are dark enough to be attractive for egg laying.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The two home made nest boxes in the chicken shed<\/p><\/div>\n

My husband removed them from the shed and when covering the last bit of the top of the boxes he also raised this part to make access for the girls easier.<\/p>\n

\"Back<\/a>

Back view of the adapted nest boxes<\/p><\/div>\n

Butterscotch is inspecting in the bottom right corner of the photo.<\/p>\n

\"Front<\/a>

Front view of the nest boxes minus the pine shavings<\/p><\/div>\n

They needed gluing and leaving overnight to dry properly so I put them in place for the photos but haven’t put shavings in yet as I then removed them to dry.<\/p>\n

They look a bit crude but as long as they serve their purpose that doesn’t matter. They may need a bit of fine tuning. We may put another strip of wood along the top edge to make the box less open.<\/p>\n

I will put them back in tomorrow and see if broody Butterscotch finds them. If she sits in them we will know they are okay as she is our biggest and least agile girl. The proof is in the pudding as they say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All winter we have had only one girl laying and the process has been calm with Butterscotch choosing her spot in either of the little coop nest boxes. In spring and summer we could have up to eight girls laying … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13417"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13449,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13417\/revisions\/13449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}