On the first of June, my chicken buddy and I purchased 14 Rhode Island Red pullets.  We were going to raise them to butcher, since they are a dual purpose breed.  But after butchering around thirty of those Cornish cross chickens, we decided we had had enough for a while, and opted to spare their lives.  So, she took seven, and I kept seven.

The last week of October they began to lay.  I was unprepared and had not made any arrangements for nests.  Running low on scrap lumber, a trip to Home Depot was in order. 

I decided to make nests similar to some that I had seen on Pinterest, so I bought some 1″x4″ treated lumber and some of those orange 5 gallon buckets, and after about thirty minutes of cutting and pasting, 

  I came up with this.

The buckets even have the Home Depot motto on them,  which I thought might be inspiring.

 After some  investigation,  it seems that the only thing they intend to ‘do’ in those buckets is scratch the hay out.  Soooo…
back to Home Depot for plan ‘B’.
As for as I’m concerned, ‘B’ stands for ‘boring’.

  
This time I built a wooden box, put it on the ground where some of them had been laying, and filled it with hay.  They evidentially aren’t too wild about it either.

How agrivating is that?

So, I’m teetering on the fence between ‘the third time being a charm’…and ‘leaving well enough alone’.  Right now, the latter seems good to me.