I knew the hens were not totally thrilled with our nest facilities here at the farm. They were tolerating it, and on a few days we were even rewarded with 8 eggs! But usually we get about 4 to 6 eggs a day from our 10 hens. Now to be perfectly fair, I do believe that the two French maran hens are not laying. We have yet to get any dark eggs and that is what they should be laying. Really dark. But that’s okay, I knew that buying older hens might mean getting really old hens, and these are my first training hens, so it’s fine. But I really wanted to get them some neat laying boxes and we had a plan!!!

Now, we had all the stuff to make my plan, all stuff that we had either gotten off Craig’s List for free, or had found here at the farm. All we added was the screws, nails and paint… one of our mistinted gallons, of course! The gem of the project was 3 old wood garage door panels! One of which was open frames where windows used to be! They became our front for the girls to get into the box.

Jessy and I did most of the work, as Maggie was slaving away, mowing. She likes to mow and she’s good at it, so it was okay. Jessy is getting to be quite the little tool gal for sure, I think she likes putting things together. We had it pretty stable, pretty quickly.

Look! I’m actually working! Haha… I’m always the one taking pictures so it looks like I’m never doing anything! But Jessy decided to take some pictures, so you can see that I am a hard working gal as well! I’m the head cheerleader a lot of the time, the chief instigator for sure.
Around here, we can’t get anything done with out a kitty inspector. If it’s not Jack, it’s Luna and even Topaz is getting the hang of it. Jack is checking out the “feel” of the place, making sure it’s good for his little chicken nugget friends.

I call this maneuver, speed painting. Why mess around with those little plastic trays???

I sure hope chickens like neon green…. hmmmmm…. it’s definately going to be festive for them!

Heck, you gotta admit, it looks better than the before shot of all that yucky red and dirty white and raw wood look… Nothing but the best for our girls!

Maggie had to join in the fun and was painting a little tv table in her room color… we had to laugh… we were sure that she would loose it up there as it would now blend with the walls and all as a camouflaged table! haha… ho ho… we’re a hoot. Maggie just ignored us. Probably a good thing.
We have one more frame left from the garage doors… going to have to think of a good project for that!

Well we let it dry nice overnight and this morning, we loaded up the trusty wagon and carefully walked it back to the barn!

Oh my gosh, they love it! They were so interested and within minutes everyone was jumping up and scratching and shoving the hay around and settling in. Bucka Roo gave it his sign of approval, he loves it. Made himself a nice nest to hang with his ladies in… I’m a little worried that he really likes to make nests and all. He’s in touch with his women for sure, he has a sensitive side!

Eleanor really likes it too! She’s our adventurous gal, and always is in the thick of the excitement…

And if Katherine likes it, that’s a great sign! She’s one of our best layers. She really loves to set on a nest and share eggs! If any of our gals would go broody, it might be her. And this lovely nearly free chicken nest palace might just make her take an interest in hatching out some little Bucka babies for us!!! Wouldn’t that be delightful!!!