When Nest Boxes Attack!! Game over, I win. Booyah.

(Sorry about the manic clucking: the “ladies” didn’t want me invading their space.) Many years ago, we were given a long set of wire-framed next boxes, but they are designed to gather eggs from the front, which didn’t work for the way we wanted to setup the coop. So, we cut smaller openings in the back of each nest box through which we could reach our arms to gather eggs. It’s hard to cut the wires all the way flush, but for the years in which we had only a few hens, it was no big deal – we just reached in and out slowly, and managed to do so unscathed. But now that we have 70+ laying hens and are getting 60+ eggs a day, we have to reach in and out of each box multiple times per day, and it’s easy to get complacent, and therefore “scathed.” So I had the idea to cut little pieces of PVC pipe, split one side of it and place it over the offending wire tips – but the pipe wasn’t where I thought it was. No matter, because my pal Jared Stanley of www.youtube.com/user/jandjacres mentioned using pieces of a garden hose instead (where I come from, we call it “water hose”). I had PLENTY of spare hose laying around so, voila! Thanks, Jared!