You coulda made smaller nests, 1/2 the size in all dimentions. The top ones are ok, the bottom ones would be the pain.... Tough to get the eggs out. 2 or 3 rows of nests using 1/2 the space, not as low, woulda made for happier chickens - they want a small secure area when looking for a nest, off the ground a little.
Chickens like to have a roost to sleep on - 2x with a screen nailed to the bottom edges so the poop falls through and no chickens can get below. They do a lot of pooping at this time, nice to have a spot they can't get to where it all falls. You want that someplace else than where the nests are.
In front of the nests, a couple inches away, you want a 1x3 (or 2 1x2 is better, and flat, so the 3-4 inches is the top surface) or so as a landing pad for the chickens to land on, & hop into the nest. They will not like flying up & dropping into the edge of the nest (tho your large nests should work out for this) they will prefer the flatter ledge in front a few inches.
Worst part of your 2x ledge nailed directly to the front is they will want to use this for the roost, and will tend to poop in the nests......
To use the top nests, they need enough airspace to hop/fly up there. Think it will work, but you have a small building, not so much space in there for them to get a run & fly at it. On the 3-tier nests we had, the bottom landing roost was a foot out, the top landing roost was only 2-3 inches out, giving them a bit of a ladder effect as you mention.
They like to land on a flat surface, like to roost on a 2x surface. You can control where they do what with that info....
But, lovely work, don't want to be critical. Wow, just for chickens!!!!
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Today's Featured Article - An Old-Time Tractor Demonstration - by Kim Pratt. Sam was born in rural Kansas in 1926. His dad was a hard-working farmer and the children worked hard everyday to help ends meet. In the rural area he grew up in, the highlight of the week was Saturday when many people took a break from their work to go to town. It was on one such Saturday in the early 1940's when Sam was 16 years old that he ended up in Dennison, Kansas to watch a demonstration of a new tractor being put on by a local dealer. It was an Allis-Chalmers tractor dealership,
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