Nest box failure
The new indoor
nest box was a failure
due to multiple birds using it as a sleeping roost.
Everything was fine for the
first few nights, but eventually all the extra weight took its toll on
the plastic structure and it collapsed onto the floor.
My new goal is to improve the
night time roosting options by adding some sort of corner perch a bit
higher up than the one shown in the picture and about twice as thick
and sturdy....maybe a 2x4 with the edge rounded.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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You might try ripping 2x4 to 2x2 as that should be more the adequate for the job. I have seen roosts made from 1x2 also, and they seemed to work well. Just keep them far enough apart that they are easily cleaned off. Are you putting straw or wood chips down for ease of cleaning? It's good for the compost pile, and helps keep it sweet smelling.
When I was a kid I hated cleaning the chicken coop. It was pure ammonia and lots of scorpions(small red ones). Glad I'm like Dorothy and not in Kansas anymore (actually Oklahoma).
Yup, we're using straw/leaves/whatever carbon I get my hands on for the floor of the coop. I'm already looking forward to the luscious compost in the spring.
Thanks for the roost tips!
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