Tricia and I were talking about doing a little renovation to the hen house to solve a sanitary issue we were dealing with in the hen house. We have nesting boxes that line about half of each interior wall on each side. The hens, when they are laying, fill those boxes with eggs. But there is something else they do in the laying boxes - they roost on them at night and poop in them. They are not good house keepers. It also means extra work for Benjamin as he has to clean some of the eggs that get poop on them. If you wash the eggs, it reduces the shelf life as it removes the "bloom" or protective covering that the hen excretes on the eggs to keep bacteria from entering the eggs' pores.
But we have a plan that we enacted to mitigate this problem. We decided to build some doors that cover the boxes during the night time hours. If this renovation is successful, the hay in the boxes will stay clean. Each morning after we finish milking, we'd open the laying box doors and they'd be able to lay. A while back, a friend had given me some old cabinet doors that he was throwing away. I figured they might work. I pulled them out of the rafters of the barn and measured them. They fit perfectly! I only had four hinges on hand, but I figured that if I would 'tie' all the doors together with some wood strips, I would only need four hinges - two on one side and two on the other. We removed all of the soiled hay and poop and composted it in the garden. Then we filled with fresh hay. It ain't pretty, but you can see the finished work below. The doors are open and that signals the hens that it is time to clock in and get to work laying eggs.
Here is the nesting box door on the other side in the closed position. In the evening when we feed and separate the cows, we close the doors. The hens will roost on top of the boxes and poop on them. The nice thing is that the doors open toward the middle of the hen house, allowing all the poop to fall to the middle of the hen house. The hay inside the boxes is kept fresh and clean. The eggs are spotless. You can see how the wood strips tie the 3 cabinet doors together, allowing two door hinges on either side to do the trick.
Here is the other side in the closed position.
Like Motel 6, we leave the lights on for ya (the hens), but so far no eggs. The inventory of eggs dwindles. The clock ticks... Tick tock, tick tock.
While I was building the nesting box doors, I looked at the ceiling and the rafters was filled with cobwebs. I've never cleaned it. Cobwebs aren't all bad. One time, we de-horned a calf and the blood vessel in the horns would not stop bleeding. In the middle of the night, I went to check on the calf and there was a puddle of blood where she was bleeding! We called the veterinarian at night and he told us about an old remedy to stop bleeding: He instructed us to pack the area bleeding with cobwebs and they would stop bleeding. We did it and it worked!
Having a few cobwebs around is sort of like a first aid kit. But we had more than enough cobwebs. It was time to spruce things up. I got the broom and put on a mask and safety glasses and began sweeping all the cobwebs down. It was time-consuming work, pulling the cobwebs off the broom. The hens gathered and ate the spiders that fell. It was a happy time for the hens. Not so much for me. Finally, though, the hen house was clean.
The hens were happy, I think. So happy that they laid two eggs! You can see them in the bottom left hand corner of the picture below.
But I still have a mystery to solve. Did they begin laying because of the light? Or was it the clean nesting boxes? Or perhaps a high protein diet of spiders? Too many variables. All I know is that the hens are putting their picket signs down and slowly beginning to lay eggs again. That's something to crow about!
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