Send Us Hatemail ! mailbag@conservativecave.com
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
hedgehog (27,839 posts)chicken question -I had a feed bin on its side, and it became the favorite spot for my hens to lay eggs. I'm going to get some 5 gallon pails to set up as nesting boxes. My question is whether anyone has any opinions on round buckets v square buckets for this purpose? White, black, yellow, green, red or blue?
Viva_La_Revolution (25,763 posts)2. well, chickens are kind of round..I've never heard of using buckets, cool idea!
hedgehog (27,839 posts)4. I read about it somewhere - if they like it, it makes a lot of sense -it's very easy to sanitize a bucket! A round bucket can be stabilized with a couple of bricks.Maybe I'll get one of each shape and do a side by side comparison!
JoeyT (3,512 posts)3. We found round buckets work best.For some reason they didn't like the square one we stuck out there after we ran out of round ones. I don't know why. Then again they also arbitrarily decided they'd rather wait in line for a few favored round buckets than use another bucket that's exactly the same. Our chickens are weird.Just be sure to put a strip across the bottom of the mouth of each bucket or they'll drag their nest material out all the time.
bvar22 (27,326 posts)6. chicken answer:Depends on the chicken, but I wouldn't really know, cause I turned out to be a Rooster!Err--Err- a- Errr!We have 9 hens of different varieties and they lay in traditional square boxes.The amusing thing is that in a row of 8 identical boxes, they ALL prefer two particular boxes, and will wait in line and bitch at the other girls to Hurry Up!We added two more square boxes in a different area, and two birds have claimed ONE of these two boxes as their own.They will also bitch at each other to Hurry Up! instead using the vacant box.Things are going to get interesting over the next week because we have 10 more young hens starting to lay.Your post raised my curiosity, and I am going to experiment with a round laying nest.I'll let you know what happens.My personal guess is that the shape doesn't matter near as much as the location, and whichever box they hens, in their communal wisdom, decide is the best one.
JoeyT (3,512 posts)7. Ours do the same thing.The other day I thought they were being eaten by a predator and went running out there only to find they were throwing fits because a few had decided to linger in the favored boxes. One of the hens was actually sitting on top of another hen in the nest. The rest were just standing at the bottom of the ramp yelling.
We never get fascinating shit like this on our forum. Just anal beads and such.
Well, I'll probably get bitch slaps for this but I don't see anything wrong with this conversation. We talk about this kind of stuff on backyard chickens forum all the time.Cindie
I don't know why some primitives bother asking the other primitives questions about chickens. Blackie the Ghost Chicken could answer all of their questions, if they'd just listen.
I was just speaking (sarcastically) about how much more informative threads on the DUmp are than over here. I have no interest in chickens (or anal beads) but, feel free to discuss anything you like. I'm just trying to have a little fun here.
And now another peek at the frightening way my mind works.. Enjoy.
