Are you tired of finding chicken poop in your nesting box every time you collect eggs? Keeping chickens can be a lot of fun, but dealing with dirty nesting boxes is definitely not. Luckily, there are a few simple things you can do to prevent your feathered friends from turning their cozy nesting space into a bathroom.
So, how can you keep chickens from pooping in nesting boxes? The answer is to discourage them from sleeping in the nesting box and to provide them with suitable alternatives. By making a few changes to your coop setup and routine, you can keep your nesting boxes clean and your chickens happy.
In this article, we’ll share practical tips and advice on how to keep chickens from pooping in nesting boxes. From providing enough bedding to ensuring adequate roosting space, we’ll cover everything you need to know to maintain a clean and comfortable coop. So, whether you’re a seasoned chicken keeper or a beginner, keep reading to learn more!
How To Keep Chickens From Pooping In Nesting Boxes?
Nesting boxes are designed to lay eggs by chickens. But unfortunately, your birds like to poop at the nesting boxes, and it’s pretty irritating. As a general rule to prevent your chickens from pooping in the nesting box, follow the instructions below:
1. Prevent Your Chicken’s Sleeping In Nesting Box
Usually, when a chicken stays and sleeps in the nesting boxes all night, they poop in them. Instead of sleeping with the older hens on the roosts, the young pullets try to sleep in the boxes. As a result, they poop all night in the box and dirty the nesting box.
So the easy way of preventing your birds from pooping in the nesting box is to ensure no sleeping of birds in nesting boxes. To stop sleeping, take the little pullets out of the box.
Then, after dusk, place the pullets onto the roosts. And ensure that compared to the nesting boxes; your roosts are positioned higher. It will encourage the chicken to stay in the roost.
If, after doing so, your chicken still wants to sleep in the nesting box, then just before dusk, block the boxes. Keep the nesting boxes blocked until the following day.
How to Stop Chickens From Sleeping in Nest Boxes
2. Block The Boxes
You can try to put a cardboard or egg basket in each nesting box to prevent your chicken from pooping in the nest box. It is another easiest hack that is a practical yet inexpensive way of blocking the nesting boxes.
Blocking the boxes will prevent your chicken’s easy access to the box. Ultimately it will keep your chicken away from pooping in the box.
Now we will take you through the easy process of blocking the nesting boxes in your coop. The required materials for blocking the nesting boxes are:
- Welded wire fencing or a scrap of chicken wire
- Hammer
- Four nails with big flat heads
The blocking process:
- At the boxes, the row’s four corners nail a single nail.
- Then attach the wire fencing piece to the four nails.
- After that trip, it fit perfectly.
- Now to avoid injuries, bend the rough edges with it.
And that’s it!
After blocking the nesting boxes, you must remove the wire each morning. And in the afternoon each day, put the wire again.
Just before your flocks enter the coop, turn the wire for the night. However, without any trouble, you can remove and put up the wire whenever you need.
Also Read: Can Chickens Be Left Alone For A Week?
3. Put A Decent Amount of Bedding in Coop
To attract your chicken to sleep in the coop, always put the bedding in a decent amount. But even after putting in enough bedding, your birds can kick the bedding all out. And they may want to sleep in the nesting boxes. But you must ensure they are not sleeping in the boxes.
4. Make Nesting Boxes Perfect for Lay Eggs
Your chickens will prefer to lay their eggs in a secluded and quiet location. Chickens are prey animals, and their reproductive design dramatically increases their survival odds. One of the reproductive traits is developing eggs within their body.
They prefer a quiet and perfect location or nesting box for laying their eggs. They also like to sleep in such a place. But they start pooping and making the nesting box dirty when they sleep in it.
So, to keep the nesting box clean, you must prevent your chicken from sleeping in it. While making a chicken box, you must ensure it has enough space, a quiet area and is dimly lit.
5. Ensure Sufficient Roosting Bar Space
When there is a lack of roosting bar space inside the coop, birds are more likely to sleep within the nesting boxes. The chickens have the instinct to perch on the roosting bar, high branch or nesting box to avoid danger.
Due to insufficient space in a roosting bar, your chicken goes to the nesting box and looks for other places to sleep. And that is why the box is covered with chicken poop droppings. For regular chicken breeds, the roosting bar length should be at least 8” per chicken.
On the other hand, for the heavy breed flock, 10” should be the roosting bar length per chicken. And for the bantam breed hens, the roosting bar length should be 8” per chicken. So ensure sufficient space in the roosting bar and prevent the going of your hens in the nesting box for sleeping.
6. Place the Roosting Bars Moderately Close to the Ground
You should place the roosting bar near to the ground so that your chicken can quickly jump onto it. An older, injured, or too heavy chicken can face difficulty if you place the roosting bar too high off the ground. And then your chicken will prefer the nesting box to stay and sleep.
So, while installing the roosting bar, ensure it is no more than 2 feet off the ground. And it will keep your chicken away from going and sleeping into the nesting bar.
7. Place the Nesting Box Lower Than the Roosts
Usually, your chicken loves to stay in your coop’s highest points for protection. When the nesting boxes are higher than the roosts, your birds prefer to sleep in the nest box. So fixing this problem is simple.
The easy solution is to place the roosts above the nesting boxes. But don’t put the nesting box directly over the roost.
If you do so, your chicken will get a new favorite place to stay and sleep. Ultimately not putting the nests above the roost will keep your birds away from pooping all night.
8. Keep the Roost Clean
To prevent your chicken’s pooping in the nest box, ensure your bird’s usual sleeping area is clean. Chickens are messy, but they like a clean and friendly surface to stay and sleep.
The nesting box is usually clean, that is why your chicken prefers to sleep in it. So, you must ensure that your chicken stays in a safe and clean place within your coop.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Are My Chickens Pooping In Their Nesting Boxes?
Generally, your chicken will poop in their nest boxes when they sleep in the box all night.
How Do I Stop My Chickens From Pooping Everywhere?
To stop your chickens from pooping everywhere, you must relocate your chicken coop and keep away the feed from the porch. Then make your porch a scary place and protect your patio by generating a water barrier.
How Do You Keep Chicken Poop Away From Eggs?
Prevent the contamination of your chicken poop with the eggs by adding extra padding, using sand as litter, and investing in nest boxes.
Wrap up
Chickens are messy. And that is why they poop in their nesting box where they lay eggs. But their chaotic nature can cause irritation and suffering for you.
Therefore you need to know how to keep chickens from pooping in the nesting box. And hopefully, you already know all the ways of keeping chickens from popping into the nesting box.
After going through the above article, you can comment if you have any queries. Soon our experts will reply to you.
