Hen nesting box materials: What do they need?
You’ve done your research on coop bedding, and you’ve committed to sand, straw, or some other safe source.
But what about your nesting boxes—what material should you put in there? Sand? Organic material? Nothing at all? Something else?
Organic beddings, such as straw, hemp, or aspen nesting pads, are the best material for your chicken coop nesting boxes. Sand is also acceptable, but less desirable to hens. Plastic, rubber, or artificial grass nesting pads are poor options.
Hens can be very particular about what kind of material they nest in and just how much material they want.
In this article, you will learn:
Why hens need material in their nesting boxes
What kind of behaviors hens need to be able to perform during nesting, and why this matters in your choice of nesting box bedding
What the top 3 best nesting box materials are for your hens
How much nesting material your hens need in their nesting boxes
Or, just watch the video below to see several nesting materials in action and to learn everything you need to know!
This post contains affiliate links for my favorite products from Amazon and Chewy. As an Amazon and Chewy Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.
Why do nesting boxes need bedding?
There are 3 reasons you don’t want to leave your nesting box empty.
You can end up with broken or cracked eggs if you let your hens lay in an empty box. Nesting box material serves as a soft substrate for the egg to land on. Whereas if your hens lay on a hard surface, their eggs are much more likely to break.
Your hens need nesting material for their own satisfaction. Your hens have certain natural nesting behaviors they need to perform for their own psychological wellbeing, and they are unable to perform these behaviors in an empty box.
Your hens may not lay in an empty nesting box. Because your hens can’t perform their natural nesting behaviors in an empty nesting box, they’re very likely to lay their eggs in their litter instead. Yuck.
The 3 qualities hens need in their nesting box material.
Scientific studies tell us 3 really important things about nesting behavior. These are things your hens need for their own psychological benefit.
#1 Hens want loose nesting material.
#2 Hens need nesting material they can mold into a bowl-like depression.
And even if the nest is already bowl shaped—for example, if the nest was already molded earlier by another hen—they’ll still go through the same kicking and shaping behavior, because that’s a natural part of nesting for them.
Importantly, your hens can feel very frustrated if they don’t get to do that natural kicking and molding behavior, and laying is just overall less enjoyable for them.
#3 Hens need nesting material they can manipulate with their beaks.
So, you’ll see when they’re nesting, they’ll pick up whatever’s around them, straw, for example, or even feathers, and they’ll toss that material around themselves or behind themselves. Sometimes they’ll toss the material on their backs—it’s really pretty cute. This behavior is another natural drive for them.
One study showed that this particular drive isn’t as strong for your hens as the drive to mold the nest with their feet—so having moldable material is even more important than having material they can throw with their beaks—but they definitely prefer being able to do both.5
Nesting box materials: The best, the worst, and the so-so.
Let’s get down to the exact nesting box materials you’ll want to use.
I’ve tested about 10 or so different materials in my nesting boxes, and my experiments align with the academic studies pretty well.
I collected 3-4 months of data on which materials my hens choose to lay on, and at some point, I’ll write an article where I detail that all up for you. I promise to include shiny graphs and adorable video footage of my hens moving from box to box to test each material too.
But for now, I’ll give you the gist of it.
The worst nesting box materials for your hens.
Hens hate plastic nesting materials.
These are just too uncomfortable, and hens can’t practice their natural behaviors on them.
In fact, my hens hated the plastic inserts so much, they refused to lay on them altogether.
Hens also don’t like fake grass nesting inserts—although, they hate the plastic inserts even more.
The so-so nesting box materials for your hens.
Sand occupies sort of a middle ground when it comes to nesting materials.
Sand is definitely not going to be your hens’ favorite. They will choose to lay on organic materials if they have that option, but if you fill all their boxes with sand, they will lay on the sand—unlike the plastic inserts.
And that kind of makes sense, because the sand is way more comfortable than plastic, but your hens still aren’t able to mold it into the shape they want. Sand bedding is really too loose, but at least your hens can get in there and kick it around, which they very much enjoy.
I used sand in my nesting boxes for a full year, and I was pleased with how it performed. And I actually do temporarily put sand back into some of my nesting boxes for the summer when temperatures get really high. The sand is so cool to the touch, and I think its cooler temperature really helps my hens feel more comfortable in the blistering heat.
So, that’s a benefit from sand you don’t get from your other bedding materials.
I suspect that peat moss is another so-so nesting box bedding that performs similarly to sand. However, peat moss is potentially dangerous for your hens, so I don’t recommend it. You can learn more in my article, Peat moss for chicken coop bedding: Amazing or dangerous?
The best nesting box materials for your hens.
If you really care about your hens’ happiness, give them the nesting material they really want. Go with something loose and organic.
Below, are the top three options your hens will absolutely love.
#1 Straw, hemp, aspen shavings, or shredded paper.
Probably the easiest and most affordable option is straw. Hens love nesting in the straw, and other organic beddings work too, like aspen shavings, hemp, or shredded paper.
I don’t recommend pine shavings due to their toxic qualities. You can read more about pine shavings here: Pine Shavings in the Coop: The Secret Chicken Killer?
One of the downsides to loose, organic bedding in your nesting box is that your hens will kick it around a lot, and if the lip of your nesting box isn’t very high, your hens will kick the material all over your floor. If your floor is covered by the same bedding, this doesn’t matter. But if your hens are kicking straw or hemp onto your sand floor—ughhh!!!
You can counteract this by building up the lip on your nesting box—if it’s wooden, you could just add a board or piece of a board to the front to make the nesting box deeper.
The other thing you need to know about using loose bedding in your nesting box is that your hens do like to make that bowl-shaped depression in the material, which can eventually expose the floor of the nesting box in the center of the depression. This isn’t ideal.
So, when I use loose bedding in my nesting boxes, I always just fluff the bedding up again when I collect the eggs, no big deal. It takes all of 2 seconds.
The other thing you can do is line the floor of your nest box with old feed bag scraps. Just cut a square out and put it in the bottom of the box. Then, put the nesting material on top of that, and that way, if an egg does crack at some point, it’s very easy to clean up. You just roll up the paper with the mess on it—and voila!
#2 Aspen nesting box liners
You can also use pre-made aspen nesting box liners—hens also love these! They’re basically just thick, stringy aspen adhered to a paper liner. These tend to be more expensive than loose bedding, but they’re also more convenient.
With aspen nesting box liners, your hens are able to practice their natural nesting behaviors. They can manipulate the aspen with their beaks and throw little pieces of it on themselves. And they can mold the aspen with their feet to make bowl-like depressions.
However, unlike with loose bedding, the aspen stays mostly attached to the paper liner (and doesn’t get all over your coop floor) and the aspen is thick enough there’s always some of it lining the bottom of your nesting box, so it provides soft support for your hens’ eggs. If an egg still happened to break, the paper liner protects your nesting box floor from any goopy, disgusting mess.
If you do decide to try aspen nesting box liners, make sure you buy the super thick ones. You can find some liners that are ultra-cheap, but they’re too small for the nesting box and they’re so thin, your hens will tear them to pieces in no time.
But the really thick ones are amazing. I use these nesting box liners in my largest coop for most of the year.
#3 Raffia bedding
And then lastly, if you want to give your hens that royal treatment and you have money to spare—raffia bedding is what it’s all about.
When I experimented with 10 or so different nesting box materials in my largest coop, the raffia bedding was the preferred type above all others. Every single hen would lay in the raffia bedding if it was available.
I even put the raffia bedding in my hens’ least preferred nesting boxes. Out of their 8 nesting boxes, they never use the bottom left-most and right-most boxes. But if those boxes had raffia in them, those were the only boxes where the hens would lay. They love the raffia bedding!
Do be aware that the raffia bedding is advertised as “natural grass,” but it’s not a grass. It’s actually from an African palm tree. I emailed the manufacturer myself to find out what the composition of the “natural grass” was—they’re the ones who told me it was raffia from Africa.
Why are hens so obsessed with this stuff? I think it’s because the raffia is ultra-soft—it’s a totally different texture than all the other nesting box materials. It’s also very easy for them to maneuver with both their feet and their beaks.
And, unlike all the other materials, when your hens lay in raffia, they’re kind of hidden. Because this stuff is so fluffy, your hens kind of get lost in it. They lay in the center of the raffia, and all the surrounding material puffs up around them.
The only drawback to the raffia is it’s super expensive compared to the other materials, so unless you’ve got money to burn, it’s not a good long-term option. You can check out the current price here.
I do, however, like to use raffia bedding in the short term—mainly for brand new layers. So, when your female chicks, or pullets as they’re called, get to laying age, they have to learn to use the nesting boxes. They don’t know they’re not supposed to lay on the floor or on the poop trays or in your run.
So, I like to start my pullets who are coming into lay with really wonderful raffia nesting material in their nesting boxes to speed up that learning period. And then when the girls are laying well, I switch over to aspen pads, sand, or straw.
How thick should the nesting box bedding be?
Nesting box bedding material: The final word.
So, there you have it.
Use sand or organic bedding material in your nesting boxes, use lots of it, and your hens will be happy.
Specifically, use one of the following materials:
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