If you want your chickens to be productive and lay lots of eggs, you’ll need to provide them with nesting boxes that make them feel safe and comfortable.
Building nesting boxes is not a difficult job, and there are many ways to do it – so we went online to see what other people have been trying, and as a result, here are 22 chicken nesting box plans you might want to try at home.
1. How To Build a Chicken Nesting Box – removeandreplace.com
A basic chicken nesting box is very easy to build – as this post tells us, all you need it to be is somewhere clean and dry where your hens can lay their eggs safely. The post then goes on to provide a detailed plan for making one, including all the measurements and some photos to help you see what you should be doing – so if you need to build nesting boxes for your chickens, this could be a great place to start.
2. Nesting Boxes for Chickens – How to Build Chicken Nest Boxes
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to make four nesting boxes for chickens using just a single piece of plywood. It’s an extremely simple design, so it’s something that just about anybody will be able to copy, and it’s also an inexpensive option, which makes it ideal for anybody on a more limited budget.
3. Krafty Kritters: Easy & Cheap Nesting Boxes for Hens
As this blog post shows, giving your chickens somewhere to nest and lay their eggs doesn’t need to be a complicated job for advanced DIYers. Instead, the solution this chicken keeper came up with was just to give each bird a $1 plastic bowl that was screwed in place inside the coop and then filled with wood shavings. We’re not sure if this is the best long-term option, but if you need a more temporary solution, this idea is ingenious!
4. Finally Clean Eggs with These Nesting Boxes – Formerly Swedish Homestead
A popular type of nesting box is the so-called roll-away design – a style of nesting box that gets its name from the fact that once laid, the eggs roll away from the chicken, keeping them clean and safe while they sit waiting to be collected. There are many ways to build them, and not all of them work as they should – but the design in this video looks to be among the best, so give it a watch if you’d like to make some for yourself.
5. Nesting Box for Chickens. Our Big Mistake That You Should Avoid!
With lots of DIY projects, it’s always valuable to learn from your mistakes so you don’t end up repeating them – but it’s even better to learn from others’ mistakes instead, so you don’t have to make those mistakes for yourself. That’s why this video should be of interest to anyone planning to make nesting boxes for their chickens because you’ll see what these guys did wrong and hopefully learn how to do a better job when it’s your turn to try.
6. How To Build Chicken Nesting Boxes from Recycled Materials – homesteading.com
We firmly believe that the essence of true DIY is taking whatever scrap materials you have lying around and turning them into something beautiful or functional – or hopefully both. This is why we love this plan since it teaches us how to make chicken nesting boxes from recycled materials. That way, you can give your chickens somewhere safe and comfortable to lay eggs – and it will hardly cost you a thing.
7. DIY Chicken Nesting Boxes from Pallets – Soson Farm
Here’s an interesting video to watch – or at least the first half of it – because it shows how this enterprising DIYer and chicken keeper made some great nesting boxes from nothing but salvaged pallets. There’s little in the way of explanation, but you can see clearly what he’s doing at every step, so it should be easy for anyone with basic DIY skills to produce something similar without too much trouble.
8. Skip The Bag: How to Turn 5 Gallon Buckets into Nesting Boxes
Here’s another plan that teaches you how to make nesting boxes from recycled materials, this time using nothing more than some old five-gallon buckets. It just goes to show that you don’t need to spend a fortune on chicken nesting boxes – because after all, as long as you make them comfortable, chickens aren’t too fussy about where they live. Check it out and see if it’s the kind of plan you can use too.
9. How To Make a Chicken Nest Box for $3 – Homesteady
In this video, we get to see how to make two types of nesting box – the first is a “semi-DIY” version, while the second is a full DIY model made from buckets, similar to the ones we just saw in #8. What’s good about this tutorial is that it helps you save a bit of cash – because as you can see from the title, these nesting boxes will only cost you about $3 to make.
10. Building Milk Crate Chicken Nesting Boxes – Simple Living Country Gal
Another option for a cheap and easy nest box solution is to use milk crates – and if that sounds like an intriguing idea, this post will show you how to do it. You’ll find detailed explanations for how to make them while adapting them to your needs. They’re super practical – and we think they have a certain rustic charm all of their own too. Head over to the blog and see if you agree!
11. Nesting Boxes for the Hoop Coops – Living Traditions Homestead
This is an interesting video to watch because as well as learning how to build some sturdy DIY nest boxes for chickens, we also get to see this YouTuber’s homemade hoop coops that he uses for both chickens and ducks. We love his designs, and we can see that he’s experienced both in DIY and poultry rearing – so he’s the kind of person that most people will be able to learn a thing or two from.
12. Easy DIY Wooden Half Barrel Chicken Nesting Box – Grit
Here’s an idea we just loved. If you have free-ranging chickens, it might not be easy to get them to nest or lay in the same place all the time – hunting for hidden eggs is one of the typical activities most associated with this way of chicken keeping! However, this blogger came up with an ingenious design for a portable nesting box made from a half-barrel to give her chickens a comfortable place to lay. Whether they use it or not is another question, though!
13. How to Build the Best DIY Roll Away Chicken Nest Box for under £30! – Field to Farm
As this YouTuber explains, the typical commercial roll-away nest boxes that you can buy have several design flaws, so instead, he set about trying to come up with his own superior design. The nest boxes he made cost less than £30 (about $38 at the time of writing) and aren’t complicated to construct – and it’s true that they seem much more effective than the ones he shows us at the start of the video.
14. Chicken Coop Nest Boxes – An Eclectic Eye DIY
At the start of this post, this blogger writes that her chickens are lucky enough to be living in a chicken mini-mansion – so you can imagine how luxurious their nest boxes must be. The blogger freely admits that her designs are “overkill” for keeping chickens – but it looks like a fun hobby, and you can be sure that the chickens are as happy as any to be living in pampered conditions like these. Give it a look and see what you think!
15. DIY Nesting Boxes for Chicken Coop – The Inspired Workshop
Here’s a great idea! This DIYer has constructed a set of nesting boxes that are accessible from outside the coop, so all she has to do to collect the eggs is lift up the lid and pick them out. That way, disturbance to the chickens is kept to a minimum while making collecting the eggs much easier and more convenient. A great idea and one we’re sure lots of people will be keen to copy.
16. Making Some 5-Gallon Bucket Nest Boxes – Farm Girl in Progress
As she explains in her introduction, this YouTuber’s chicken population has recently been increasing, and as a result, she’s also expecting an increase in egg production – which means she needs to provide them with more nest box capacity. Her idea is to use plastic buckets, even if it’s just as a temporary solution – and as you can see from her video, her idea works perfectly.
17. Nesting Box from a Pallet – Little House in the Suburbs
If you have access to pallet wood – and most people do – there’s almost no limit to what you can make from it, and this blog post teaches us how to use it to construct some rather clever chicken nest boxes. Like with the plan in #15, these nest boxes also provide access from outside the coop, so not only will they give your chickens somewhere to lay, but they will also make collecting the eggs a whole lot easier for you.
18. DIY Easy Chicken Nesting Boxes – Payne Country Rust
In this video, we get to see how this YouTuber added some extra nest boxes made from plywood to his chicken coop. The nest boxes he makes are a very basic, very standard design, and they’re extremely cheap and easy to make. So if you just want something simple and don’t need to make anything too fancy, this should be just the kind of plan you’re looking for.
19. Building a Roll-Away Nest Box – The Southern Agrarian
Here’s another plan for roll-away nest boxes, this time made from modified 18-gallon plastic storage boxes. Like all the best designs, they’re super-easy to make – and they also work particularly well, giving the chickens somewhere to lay and then protecting the eggs until you have time to come in and collect them.
20. How to Build Rolling Nesting Boxes for Chickens – Country Sparkles
We’ve already mentioned how roll-away nesting boxes are extremely popular at the moment, and here’s another tutorial that teaches you how to make some. We like the way this YouTuber planned everything out carefully before she started work by drawing up detailed diagrams complete with all the necessary measurements. This kind of forethought and attention to detail is exactly the kind of thing that ensures a DIY project will be a success – as hers evidently was, judging by what we see at the end of the video when her nest boxes are finished.
21. How to Make a Milk Crate Nest Box – City Girl Farming
We’ve already seen one plan for making nesting boxes out of milk crates, and here’s another one – albeit a slightly different version. However, they certainly do the job – and this kind of nest box will hardly cost anything to build, which means we’re sure this will be another popular design among those looking for nesting box ideas for their chickens.
22. DIY Old Tire Nesting Box – homesteadlifestyle.com
To finish, here’s a super-cute and highly original idea for chicken nest boxes – because this blogger used some old tires to make them. We love the photo of the black hen happily ensconced in her green nest, and if you can visualize your chickens inhabiting a similar style of abode, this post also provides a clear step-by-step guide to building something just like it.
Lots of great plans to copy
As we’ve seen, there are lots of ways to make inexpensive yet functional chicken boxes – and many of designs are particularly cute too.
We’ve enjoyed finding these plans for you, so we hope you’ve enjoyed reading and watching them all too. And above all, we hope we’ve helped you find the inspiration you needed for building some chicken nesting boxes of your own.
