Necessity, The Mother of Invention.

George Farquhar an Irish Poet, who I never have heard his name but his quote has stuck with me over the last couple days.  He coined the title of this post.   So here it is:

A Portable Free-Range Chicken Nest Box.

Yep, you've got it.  A Portable Free Range Chicken Nest Box.  Not a mailbox although I check it everyday for special deliveries.  After Sunny's dramatic first egg episode in which she tooled around our landscaping and nearly wore herself out looking for a good nest, I thought I could probably give her and the others a great set up near where they want to be.

The very next day my Black Australorp, Holly wondered around aimlessly, but she was smarter than Sunny in that she went to the coop for her first egg.  She didn't like being all the way down there by herself though, I could tell.  I saw her in there and she saw me and then she proceeded to follow me back up the hill.  I then picked her up and took her over to the Portable Free Range Chicken Nest Box and she started her nest making and laying, giving us a nice small brown egg.  Sunny went checked it out herself and left another one of her large eggs. Lily, our Easter Egger also likes it and left a beautiful green small egg.   We did have a mystery layer this morning.  I have no idea who left a small more rounded brown egg in the coop but I do surely appreciate they left one. Such a good girl.

So the idea is that I will move this thing around to a particular place in the yard, if they find better locales to range about.   I also thought come winter, when I imagine we'll have a run set up and more coop time, this will help out in the Run for egg depositing. 

Special feature for easy cleaning is the lower board on the opening flips down and you can just scrape out the nesting materials and put in new.  Although it seems it's down most of the time anyway, as when it's up, the hole is smaller to get through for them.  I didn't do my homework there.  I've already tweeked it some.  As most "inventions" I'm guessing get tweeked.  I've put on a strip of red fascia, left over from our house trim over the peak of the roof so rain doesn't slide between the two panels of the corrugated steel roof and leak into the nest inside. My son has made a ramp and dremelled grooves for traction to help the girls get inside, also.

So far this little necessity for my girls has already proven itself, until it proves itself useless or otherwise, I have a dog house for a chihuahua,then.