Poultry encyclopedia · NEXTEKCI School · Farm equipment
Nest boxes and perches for layers
Nest boxes give hens a dark, quiet place to lay clean eggs; perches let them sleep off the ground. One individual nest for 5 to 6 hens, 40 to 50 cm off the floor, in place before the pullets arrive.
Key facts
- Individual nests
- 1 nest for 5 to 6 hens
- Communal nests
- 1 m² of nest for 80 to 100 hens
- Height
- 40 to 50 cm off the floor
- For 1,000 hens
- About 170 to 200 individual nests, or 10 to 13 m² of communal nests
- Installation
- Before the pullets are moved in, at about 16 to 17 weeks
- Floor eggs
- Less than 2%
What they are for
A hen looks for a dark, quiet, bedded place to lay. If she finds it in a nest, the egg stays clean and whole. If not, she lays on the floor: the egg is dirty, broken or eaten, and the other hens copy her. Perches let hens sleep off the ground, away from the litter, and stop them sleeping in the nests and soiling them.
How many nests
Allow 1 individual nest for 5 to 6 hens, or 1 m² of communal nest for 80 to 100 hens. For 1,000 hens, that means about 170 to 200 individual nests, or 10 to 13 m² of communal nests. Plan their space when the house is built.
Setting them up
Set the nests 40 to 50 cm off the floor, along the wall, in the quietest part of the house, with an access perch in front. They must be dark and bedded with clean wood shavings or rice husks. Nests are in place, clean and bedded before the pullets are moved in at about 16 to 17 weeks: a hen that gets used to laying on the floor keeps the habit.
Close off the dark corners of the house where hens would lay on the floor. The target: less than 2% of eggs laid on the floor.
Perches
If you install perches, place them above an area that is easy to clean, never above feeders or drinkers, which the droppings would soil. Some farmers close the nests in the evening after the last collection and reopen them in the morning, so the hens sleep on the perches and not in the nests.
Maintenance
Change the bedding as soon as it is dirty, and remove broken eggs at once: a hen that tastes a broken egg learns to eat them, and the others copy. Collect eggs 3 to 4 times a day, more often in severe heat, and pick up floor eggs very early and separately. Between flocks, nests are emptied, washed, disinfected and dried with the rest of the house.
Common mistakes
Too few nests; nests installed after the first eggs; nests that are too bright, which encourages feather pecking and egg eating; dirty or missing bedding; dark corners left open; eggs collected too rarely; perches placed above the feeders.