Grand Designs or Restoration Man??

It's a bit of both, actually. We posted in July about our egg thieves, the magpies, and it has led to desperate measures.

We tried putting fake eggs in the nest box to deter the magpies from returning..

These were lightly inflated balloons with a spoonful of flour in them, the idea being that when the bird pecked them, the eggs would "explode". Magpies, we discovered, are not that daft! They didn't touch the fakes!

As a last resort Colin designed and built (at great cost and a trip to Brico Depot) a roll away nest box floor, to fit underneath these existing nest boxes.

The slight bevel in the middle of the base allows the egg to roll to the side.

He then made a lid for each side-box and the job was almost complete.

One thing we hadn't bargained for was the brown hen climbing up on the side-box to lay, which meant her egg fell off and cracked. This was modified as follows, but initially without the hook and the square of lighter coloured wood at the base on the right...

The hook and piece of wood were added because this persistent hen managed to push her way under the mesh to get up on the box, with the same egg-smashing result!

 Now, with roof repaired too, the lucky hens have a Grand Design or Restoration project and the magpies are no longer stealing our eggs.

I wish that was the end of the story... but the grey hen refuses to go into the new nest boxes and now lays in the shelter underneath (but at least it's out of the way of the magpies) and the white hen is moulting, so not laying as frequently!

Also we bought some short trimmed artificial grass (again at great cost) to line the nest boxes but none of the hens would go inside with that in place, so we've resorted to pieces of old carpet which can be taken out and cleaned!

Who said you could win with hens?!