Homestead Frugality: Double Nesting Box

The one drawback to muscovies is that they go broody A LOT. Don’t get me wrong I love our ducks and broody is good but it does require a lot of nesting boxes. A while ago we had a second hen go broody this wasn’t a problem for a few weeks because we only had one laying hen but as our other hens came back from their break they started to lay on the ground, which just makes the eggs dirty. We didn’t want to spend any money to fix this problem. We could have gone out and bought another Rubbermaid tote, it’s not like they are expensive. Then Chris suggested we use the large tote we had laying around! I felt that it was too large, that the ducks wouldn’t feel comfortable laying in such a large space. Then we had the great idea to divide the interior and get 2 nesting boxes out of one. We cut a thin piece of scrap wood to fit, drilled 4 holes on each side of the bin and 2 holes on each side of the piece of wood to line up with the holes in the bin. Secured the wood to the bin using zip ties (zip ties are literally life on a tight budget homestead) through the holes.

I was a little concerned the ducks might not want to be this close to each other while laying. The wood is very thin and there is a space on the top where they could see each other. Apparently I shouldn’t have worried…..

Last week a third duck went broody so it’s a good thing we took care of this issue. Now we’re down to one laying box so we might need to get some more soon. I’m really proud of this project, we managed to fix a problem without spending any money!

Update: We did find that if there is a hen broody in one section no one will lay in the second half. That’s okay though because we at least gained one nesting box for free!