Brooder Issues Solved

Ewwwww...how do they get so messy so fast???

Yes, they poop a lot. I can think of a lot of things that smell worse then chick poop to be honest with you....like the soup of chick food mixed with a healthy dose of poop because they insist on spilling or splashing their water everywhere. I've learned that the duck are going to make it hard to keep the water nice. This might be a problem when they are older and we are all ready planning on needing separate places for their water.

I took a different approach this year than I have in the past. We used to use a wood box that transformed into the nest box on the coop. I kept it full of shavings and paper and had to change the chips every day and clean it up several times a day...mostly from the water.

We only got 6 chicks to add to our flock this year so it's a lot easier simply because of the number. This year I have the indoor rabbit cage placed inside the hard kiddy pool in our basement. The heat lamps rest right on top of the metal cage and I have no worries of them falling. I've had them mounted in the past and always did worry....because that's who I am.

Before I added the pie pans and more wood shavings.

 This rabbit cage had the tray under it so there is a gap between the floor of the cage and the pool. This is your every day cage from any pet store. I keep the rest of the floor covered for them so it's comfy on thier feet but left the area under the water open so the water drips (splashes) down into a  pie pan under the cage. I didn't have this in there at first and I knew there had to be away to keep from having to pick the cage up and clean the pool all the time. I also put a pie pan under the food. This stuff isn't free and it's depressing how much gets wasted. The ducks seem to like to eat it from the pie pan better than the feeder anyway.

Two problems solved:) Now we just need to keep the car keys away from Bailey....