How To Make a Chicken Nest Box for $3

today we're in the chicken yard and we have a really good DIY video for you all about nest boxes so we're gonna show you two kinds of nest boxes today one which is like a semi DIY and the other which is a full-on five-gallon bucket hack so let's get into how to do your own nest boxes [Music] when you first start off your journey in farm-fresh eggs and chickens some people buy a coop that's already made like we did with this coop and these groups typically come with a nest box already set up these work really well if you go this route it's a nice easy way to get started up and running getting farm-fresh eggs oh I just dropped one heck off back off its mind other people wouldn't go in the farm-fresh egg route instead of buying a coop like the red one they do what we did with this yellow building and convert an existing building into a chicken coop or maybe even build one from scratch and when you're doing that you have to decide what you're gonna do for the nest boxes [Music] in just a few weeks we have some new chicks coming those chicks need to go in the red coupe which means we have to bump all our egg layers out of the red coupe and get them to go into this yellow coupe the other coupe is big enough for everybody but it doesn't have enough roof space or nest boxes so today we're gonna start addressing the nest box problem and setting up your nest boxes you do need to make sure you have enough nest boxes for all your chickens that doesn't mean one nest box per chicken generally you'll see that the chickens pick one or two nest boxes to be their favorite and they all a in that space so as long as we have for our group of chickens a few different options for them they'll be okay we don't need to set up 15 nest boxes [Music] right now this coop is setup for one roost we have one nest box in here but it's a pretty large coop it can hold all the birds the most limiting factor to any coop is really its roost space how much space you have on the roost right now we have about 8 feet of roof space which is good for about 8 chickens we have like 16 chickens so we need a second full-length roost which means this next box has to go up higher you don't want your nest box under the roost because then all the chickens will poop on the nest box so we're gonna bump this nest box up into the corner let's get to work [Music] these nest boxes you get unlike tractor supply and get them on Amazon we'll put a link below these are great they work fantastic and you can screw them in real quick boom they're up and then if you have to move them there like you saw it just took me one minute to move this thing that's a lot harder to do with like a wooden nest box so I really like using these because we've used these ones we've moved them a thousand times and they're just easy to work with I'll put a link below for these nest boxes [Music] that baby is finished that's how quickly you can hang these nest boxes now what if you don't want to buy one what if you want to DIY it I got a good DIY trick for you for another nest box option let's go do that you can turn a five-gallon bucket into a nest box this is a really simple trick and if you want to DIY it you can save a little bit of money these are like three bucks a tractor supply but you know the best way to do it if you have an old one lying around you know that's perfect what you're gonna do is you're gonna be cutting that about halfway back and halfway down just this section off it'll make more sense when I show you what it is and then you put half of a lid back on it and so they have a nice and closed area to hop up inside a little bit of hay but they still have a roof back here so let me show you what I mean I brought this outside to show you it's a little easier to film outside we're gonna cut the bucket out here and then we're gonna bring it back in and mount it and I'll show you how to mount it essentially what we're gonna do is we're gonna be cutting back as far as this line right here cutting a notch in the top so the chicken can fly up and then crouched down in behind here you'll see on these buckets they have that little extra meat there for the handle I'm gonna go just above that on either side back - this lie just above that - this line okay [Music] [Applause] okay I got my straight line down now I'm gonna cut back at it so I have room to turn the sawzall blade you can see I cut that triangle notch that's just so I could work my blade and come back this way [Music] that's the basic idea that right there now I got to clean this edge up just a little bit [Music] [Music] so this is the basic idea of the five-gallon bucket nesting box you have enough room for the chicken to fly up full height and then kind of crawl into the bucket there you have your hay back in there and this is the little roost area where they fly up on - we've never used one of these before but I've seen them done plenty at times and I figured it'd be fun to try out a DIY version of a nest box save a little money by using some stuff we already have now let's show you how you're gonna mount these - mount these all you need is a couple screws and a couple washers let's go into the barn and we're gonna hang this on the wall the chickens already back using the nest box that we moved let's see if any of the chickens start using the new nest box will do with like a vs. here we'll compare to see if chickens prefer this guy versus the bucket oh I'm sorry we bugging him I'm sorry I didn't mean to something I said we're gonna mount this right next door mostly just you know for efficiency sake for a collection when you come out it's nicer if they're closed versus having this way at the other end of the coop to mount it we're using exterior screws and some big washers we're just gonna put these screws through the washers and a few of those at the back of this should help hold it up the holes on these washers were just a little bit too big so I used a smaller washer around the head of the screw and that smaller washer well then lock in the larger washer [Music] there it is we're gonna put a few more of those into add some more strengths to it [Music] [Music] [Applause] the last step to this DIY nest box is to put a lid on the bucket and then cut that lid that'll keep all the hay and the eggs from just sliding out and falling onto the coop floor just like that [Applause] [Music] perfect that's just right just what we want a lower front a little bit high on the sides and the chicken get right in there now we're gonna make the bed put some hay in there give the chickens it's the idea that this is an option for them I got a couple eggs from the other coop chickens are like you know high school kids very susceptible to peer pressure once they see one cool chickens doing it all of them are gonna want to do it she's laying her eggs in there oh well I gotta lay my eggs in there so that's it to nest boxes DIY style this one the semi DIY and that one a full-scale DIY will update you later we'll watch and see how the chickens like these two and we'll let you know if this option actually works well or if the chickens all prefer this one and yeah so stay tuned for that hope you like this video if you did be sure to sign up to our e-mail list youtube doesn't send all our videos to our subscribers but everybody on that email list every friday gets all of our videos all of our podcasts all the news first so sign up there

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Views: 196,208

Rating: 4.8044834 out of 5

Keywords: farm, farming, homesteading, homesteady, homesteaders, backyard farming, chickens, nest boxes, chicken nest box, diy nest box, diy nest box for chickens, how to make a chicken nest box, how to make a chicken nest box from 5 gallon buckets, 5 gallon buckets, how to make a nest box from 5 gallon buckets, how to make a nest box for chickens, nest box ideas, nest box diy, nest boxes for chickens, backyard chickens, chicken eggs, farm fresh eggs, backyard chicken eggs

Id: R3LvfsZ79C0

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2018