good afternoon welcome back to our
channel we are glad you're here
every so often we get contacted by
companies who want us to try out their
products
and most of the time those products are
from overseas and they're silly little
gadgets
that don't benefit you at all and they
don't benefit me
so i just don't do it but this time i
said yes and it's because
this product i think you'll like and
it's going to help me out with a problem
that i'm having with my chickens
now another reason i said yes is because
this is a family-owned business from
indiana
now they did send this to me for free to
test out
and they wanted my honest opinion so i'm
going to give it to them and like i said
there's a lot of cool features to this
thing but there's also some things they
need to improve
but i think that the overall product is
pretty awesome
now that company is called hen gear and
the product is
a new type of nesting box that helps
protect your egg so
let's go and show you how to put it
together and then
we'll test it out for you and then we'll
wrap up at the end of the video and talk
about the things that i love about it
how performed and the things that they
can improve if you're new here awesome
stick around on a permanent basis by
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and the notification bell now one of the
features of this nesting box is that the
eggs roll away
and they roll through a curtain so that
if you have
hens that are pecking their eggs and
eating their eggs
they're going to roll behind that
curtain and the chickens will not see
them that's a great feature
since our bard rocks decided to start
eating
and packing their eggs i was initially
thinking about replacing
this nesting box with the one from hen
gear but
these rhode islands aren't pecking their
eggs at all they're doing great
but these bard rocks really have an
issue with that especially the one with
the green band
around her leg that's the one i think
that's doing the majority of it
and i hope it doesn't rub off on the
other two i don't think it has so far
all right let's get this thing together
and then mounted in this coop out here
let's get her open up see what's in the
box
one of the features of this is this
grass-like
plastic mat here where the eggs kind of
roll down and out
into the collection area and
they did this so that
the bloom on the eggs would not get
ruined and it would not accumulate a
whole bunch of
garbage on the top from like dust in
your chicken coop
here's a little egg curtain that the
eggs roll through
into the collection area of the nesting
box
it's very light it's like a durable
vinyl
it's thick it's probably i don't know
three four mil maybe
and uh they're nice and close together
so the chicken's not going to see
through that
at all to see the eggs first things
first the
3 8 inch bolts through these two spots
right here on the side
on the sides three and four
okay size three and four have the bolts
through them you're gonna need a 9
16 inch wrench and socket to do that
okay this is part number seven it's got
a roll in the end of it and that's where
the
bolt sits in there like that it sits
on top the other one just slips in the
other side
and
comes out just like that i believe
that's the egg tray to open up
to get your eggs out so we're going to
take this
part number 12 here which is called the
tray front that's going to come to the
inside
so you're going to slide it in like this
to the front
so into the front all the way
like that and then you're gonna attach
it
at these two points and then one point
on the bottom on both sides so in six
places
all right there's the egg collection
tray pretty simple to put together now
let's get to the nesting box part of it
set this off to the side you're going to
do
the same thing as you did to the other
one you've got these big bolts they're
going to come through
the side put the nut on
like that and then that little rolled
part right there on the bottom will fit
over top of that
so here we go we've got both sides with
our bolts in the corners we've got the
back
door right here with the rolled edge on
the bolts themselves and that opens to
the inside
of the nesting box then to get part 10
in here in the bottom
we've actually got to pull this door up
a little bit
and slide part 10 in here and then
connect it in six spots
with these little screws
remember this has to swing freely to the
inside
like this okay then you got the two c
channels the one
has the uh curtain on it for hiding the
eggs
that's part number 13 that goes inside
like this
and connects exactly like that and then
one this one is 11 that's the bottom c
channel
and just connects here at the bottom
using those same little
lock nuts and the 3 16 inch screws
so it looks like each one of these holes
on the sides is elongated so it's got
some adjustability to it which is nice
[Music]
so we're going to put the top on here
it's pretty self-explanatory
just connects on the top with
four of those 3 16 inch screws so the
inside of these nesting boxes is totally
open
it's not compartmentalized like a lot of
other nesting boxes or it doesn't have
any dividers in it
for each chicken they've found in the
research
on their farm that the chickens do not
mind
a kind of a group laying situation as
long as they've got some privacy from
the outside and that's what this curtain
is for
so the nice thing about this nesting box
is that you can mount the egg collection
tray
on either the front or the back this is
pretty simple
it's got three holes on the side you're
just gonna align it with the holes
on the main body here but before you put
the screws in
you're gonna need to put on your
roosting bar bracket
and that one pivots like this so you can
push up the roosting bar so that you can
lift open
the egg collection tray top to collect
your eggs
so that one will go through right here
on the side and align
with those two holes right there so once
you've fully assembled your
egg collection box on the front you've
got your roosting bar brackets on here
you put on your roosting bar that flips
up out of the way so you can open
the trap door and collect your eggs if
you're putting the egg collection box on
the back there's no need to put that
roosting bar on the back obviously
it's going to be still put here on the
front to stick out into the coop to give
your chicken somewhere to
jump up onto and get into the nesting
box
so this back door has a magnet and you
put it right here at the bottom so when
you close the door
it'll stick to the body of the nesting
box and keep the door shut
but we're going to push this open and we
are going to
insert our bottom grate now you're going
to do that so
the front lip of that grate right here
goes all the way
into the front into the egg collection
box itself
then we're going to slide in our mat on
top of that and we're ready to attach it
into our coupe now it comes with these
brackets right here which you can screw
into your coop wherever it is
and it hangs right here on these
brackets so let's go do that
well we've got it installed and they're
checking it out we're going to wait a
couple of days and actually
leave all the eggs in there we're not
going to collect any we're going to see
if that little curtain does its job
and helps prevent these barred rocks
from
pecking on their eggs because i know for
a fact they do they pecked through
two out of three the other day and ate
them which is pretty crazy
and before you say it i know well i've
got them on a high calcium diet but it's
still not helping so
they've already got a taste for it so
getting the eggs out of their site
is the best thing to do so we'll be back
in a few days to talk about how it
performed in terms of keeping those eggs
safe
i'll talk about some features that i
like and i don't like see you in a
minute
welcome back it's a few days later and
we are going to talk about this nesting
box and how it performed
so i haven't taken the eggs out of it in
a couple of days
and just to see if the hens could reach
their necks down in there past that cool
curtain
that they have designed into it and
pack the eggs like they were especially
that one i told you about she's got the
green band on her leg
she's got a taste for eggs and uh
it's not good so let's check it out okay
let's see what we've got
in our egg collection box we raise our
roosting bar here
just flip it up out of the way like that
and then open open the door
all right we've got some eggs and
they're all intact
it looks like i don't see any peck holes
now this is pretty deep this nesting or
this egg collection box
box is pretty deep past this curtain
right here which is nice
you know chickens have long necks so
they could reach down in there if they
wanted to but
hopefully it looks like anyway that this
has protected
the eggs you'll have to excuse the fan
noise it's about 100 degrees outside
already
i took the nesting box in here in the
barn so i could actually talk about it
without pouring sweat on camera cool now
that we've established that the nesting
box can protect your eggs from
hens that love to pack on their eggs
let's take a look at some of the
features i love
and then some that can be improved okay
the obvious first feature that i love
is the egg drawer itself it did protect
the eggs also
that mat that they put inside is really
really nice
it didn't impede any of the eggs rolling
down the slope is calculated properly so
that they rolled down gently
into the end all the way to the end of
it and the chickens couldn't get to it
and then obviously that curtain that
they put in there
to block the view of the eggs from the
chickens
is awesome i think i'm going to
incorporate something like that
into my nesting boxes that i already
have
that didn't protect the eggs at all
another feature that i was actually
unsure of that my chickens did like was
the
group laying idea where you don't have
individualized separate boxes for each
chicken
where they can lay in there by
themselves but i saw two chickens in
here
the other day and they were laying next
to each other
no problem at all let's talk about
another feature i like a lot and that is
the construction
it's really solid it's really thick
sheet metal
now let's talk about a few areas on the
box that i think ken gear could
improve upon for an even better product
and one of those
is this back door now it's really cool
the way that
bryce features it in the company's video
and that you can just push it open and
clean it out and get
things out like cleaning the mat which
is really really great
but for someone like me on a homestead
that doesn't work too well
if i want it rear mounted a rear mounted
egg drawer and the reason
is is predators so if i did it like this
and mounted it
on the outside of my coop like a lot of
nesting boxes
are for homesteaders and
people just own backyard chickens then
it's not going to work because you need
some sort of
secure protective barrier here so that
nothing
can just get into your coupe so
potentially some sort of latch system
on it i don't know i'm not the engineer
but potentially a latch system on it if
i do end up
putting it on my other coupe i will come
up with some sort of secure
latch to hold both sides here because
you guys know predators you know
raccoons they can get
in a lot of different places now for a
large commercial
area where this is inside of the coop
totally inside and not hanging out of a
chicken coop then it works perfect and
you can clean it really easily and
that's cool feature
and building on that improvement i'll
talk about another awesome feature is
that you can
flip around the egg collection drawer
from the front to the back
that makes it really versatile
especially for a homesteader
because we have different types of coops
you saw the coop that i put it in it's
just a cage a metal cage
outside my other coop is built strong
wood
inside and the egg box is on the outside
so
it's very versatile and it gives you a
lot of options which is neat
so here's another area which needs
improvement and that's the flip up roost
bar
so this is either a design or
manufacturing issue
and this roost bar has a little stop
here where this piece folds up it won't
push back
any farther and fold up any farther than
what it is
right here and that causes
this door no matter how you slide it
back and forth
to not fit down there you have to jam on
it to get it down
past that now that's not a huge deal
it's just a precision
issue in how it's manufactured so if
this cut right here can be pushed back a
little farther you get a little more
distance on this roost bar as it folds
up
and stops back on here then
i think that'll alleviate the problem so
i'm really thankful for hen gear sending
this to me and
asking for an honest review because as
you see
i don't hold anything back where there's
improvements i'll tell the company where
they need improvements
where there's awesome things i'll tell
the company there are awesome things
and on this particular nesting box
the awesome stuff far outweighs the
little improvements that they could make
so i really love companies who send
something and say
give me your honest opinion and that's
it
they want to know so that they can
improve
their product for you now even with
those few
improvements that need to get taken care
of the overall product is
amazing all right it saved my eggs over
the last couple of days no pecking going
on i usually would lose an egg a day
and i do recommend this thing so i will
put a link to it in the description
below
and thank you so much to hen gear for
thinking of me and sending this out
now go check out this video right here
which shows you how we built our metal
framed
chicken coop have a great day we love
you see you on the next video
bye
you