Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a confused, tangled or disorderly mess, a state of confusion or disorder.

1817		Amer. Mthly Mag. Oct. 476/2: Among the vulgar jokes are such expressions as these, ‘kicked to death by grasshoppers,’ ‘like shot from a shovel,’ ‘a hurra’s nest,’ ‘a hen in a hurricane,’ &.c.
1829		Longfellow in S. Longfellow H. W. Longfellow I 164: A queer looking Dutchman, with a head like a ‘hurra’s nest’ and a great wooden pipe [DA].
1840		R.H. Dana Two Years before the Mast (1992) 24: Everything was pitched about in grand confusion. There was a complete hurrah’s nest, as the sailor’s say, ‘everything on top and nothing at hand.’.
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 114: Here’s a pretty hurrahs nest.
1869		H.B. Stowe Oldtown Folks 30: You’ve got our clock all to pieces, and have been keeping up a perfect hurrah’s nest in our kitchen for three days.
1872		Wkly Kansas Chief (Troy, Kan.) 26 Dec. 1/6: We are the only hurrahing people — the only brood hatched in a ‘Hurrah’s nest’.
1889		Columbus Jrnl (NE) 20 Mar. 2/2: Outside it showed signs of old age, and outside it looked like a hurrah’s nest.
1895		A. Brown Meadow-Grass 134: I’ll clear up this kitchen; it’s a real hurrah’s nest, if ever there was one [DA].
1903		Warren Sheaf (Marsghall Co., Minn.) 29 Oct. 8/2: The bureau looked like what sailors used to call a ‘hurrah’s nest’.
1910		E.A. Walcott Open Door 337: Here’s this room looking like a hurrah’s nest.
1916		Sun (NY) 8 June 4/2: Republican conventions are never so much of a hurrah’s nest as Democratic gatherings.
1935		S. Lewis It Can’t Happen Here 384: He was blinking with sleepiness, and his silver hair was a hurrah’s nest.
1948		Chicago Trib. 8 Feb. [comics] 1: Your hair looks like a hurrah’s nest! [DA].