you may wish to look up a farm in north east Georgia for tips on free range birds and nesting. The short answer is yes, depending on how/if they roost the same place or not--- & it will take them a few days to adjust but they will. NATURE'S HARMONY FARM in elberton Georgia, is a sustainable farm which i have lent a hand on on occasion. They have a wounder blog about their farm and how they do things. They have generally about 300- 400 laying hens and around 200- to 300 broilers--- all free range, truly free range. they also raise sheep, pigs, cattle and heritage ducks & turkeys. the turkeys are the coolest to me as they actually roost way up in the trees :P the way they move the cows everyday & then the chickens to the paddock the cows were in just dose wounders for their fields which looked quite bad just 3 years ago when they started :) hope this helps a lil

itrom.......Last year when chickadees took over our fave BB box after so many year of having only BBs in the box there were reclaim fights but the BBs did not win and we never saw any all summer and that was sad. That particular box is the one we can see easily and we love to watch them and take photos. There are two other boxes nearby so I kept asking myself why can't the cute chickadees just use those...lol. BBs have moved into the fave box and I hope there is peace! Good luck and enjoy whatever nests ...or...put up another box and if you do make sure you follow instructions as to how far from the fist one.

Joe, The bar is there to keep the hole the correct size,I make mine 1-3/8" from the bottom of the hole to the bottom of the bar.The space above the bar is for ventilation.In these plans the bar is also being used as a hinge,the door(front of the box) would then lift up from the bottom.I myself prefer the door to swing down from the top.I only had the bar on the door,not going through the side of the box as shown in the plans,I then made my hinge on the bottom.I just used a seperate piece of the bar for the pin lock.For the bar and pin,I used a piece of 1/8"brass welding rod,but am sure you could use any 1/8"rod you can find,maybe aluminum.I guess you could have the bar like in the plans and still have your hinge on the bottom,but you would have to fish the bar through all the holes every time you opened the box. Matt

Awwww..so sorry to hear of this. That storm came through my yard too, and took one of my Bradford Pears down. It landed across my driveway, and luckily did not hit the house or our basketball goal. Gosh, it came through really fast. If you are not seeing them back at the house at all, then they have abandoned the nest. You don't need to wait the 2 weeks to remove the nest. Give it a few days, and when you are sure that they have abandoned, go ahead and remove the nest. Maybe they will build there again. There is still plenty of time.~~Angie