Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[Fancychooklady]

Wee little eggs, we have had a couple fo those.

CB, I checked out your Blue Roo's, very cool. I will need to get some close up pics of our boys, one is much darker than the other, but the light one seems to have a sign of the dark lacing.

I have been looking over our little guys very closely.....which one to keep?!

I also noticed in your profile pic, you have chicks on straw. Is that what you usually brood on or is it a mix or just a once off? I recently went back to pine shavings and shudder at the price of more. I am curious to know if it's safe to change to straw once the chicks have their 'legs' sorted and know what their food is etc. Sometime around the 4 week mark or so?

Anyone else change to straw or a mix for the brooder?

I've tried a few things Ben, but I've come back to oaten chaff for the first couple of weeks, then I switch that out for hay. Both products can be used in the garden.

 

[Rnbwbrite1207]

Ben, I have been hanging out here for awhile reading through. Your story is inspiring. I finally have something to add to the conversation! Have you considered sand for your brooder? I love it. It's easy to clean. I use a small collander to scoop out the little poops. It drains well. I can't say enough good things about it but here is a blog post that gave me the idea in the first place.
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/09/chicken-coop-bedding-sand-litter.html?m=1

 

[CB and CG]

Hi Ben,
When I brood chicks with a mother hen I use straw in the broody pen (As pictured in profile pic).
When I hatch chicks via incubator and brood them myself I have them on pine shavings for about 3-4 weeks. When they move into the grower pen at 4 weeks, I put them on to straw. This is my routine and I have never had any problems. I have used Lucerne Chaff in the place of Pine Shavings before but found it messy and It doesn't absorb the smell as well as the wood shavings.

You will need to post some pics of your blue boys when they feather up. It can be tricky choosing. A lot of the time the darker boys turn out better in the long run. My Rooster had Beautiful defined lacing when he matured but looked like this at 5 weeks old.

 

[Bens-Hens]

I've tried a few things Ben, but I've come back to oaten chaff for the first couple of weeks, then I switch that out for hay. Both products can be used in the garden.

Good to hear hay or straw is acceptable once they're are clear of the risk of spraddle leg. I have not seen oaten chaff at the shops I visit around here, but I did find a feed store with barley straw for $10 a bail. Much cheaper than the $40 pine shaving blocks I have been getting.

Ben, I have been hanging out here for awhile reading through. Your story is inspiring. I finally have something to add to the conversation! Have you considered sand for your brooder? I love it. It's easy to clean. I use a small collander to scoop out the little poops. It drains well. I can't say enough good things about it but here is a blog post that gave me the idea in the first place.
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/09/chicken-coop-bedding-sand-litter.html?m=1

Hi and welcome Rnbwbrite120 (we are going to need an easier name for reference here hahaha) Glad you have hung around and got something from out little adventure.

We use sand in our main coop, and I use a modified milk jug as a sift/scoop which works well. I like it the most of the things I have tried. I had not given much thought to using it in a brooder. Both our brooder have removable floors to make cleaning easier, so sand would leak out around the little gaps. I would need to address that.

A 20kg bag of washed play sand here is about $7.50 and I would need probably 2 bags for the franken-brooder. I will give it some consideration next time we are looking at materials.

This time however, I have a bail of straw from a nesting box refresh I did, was keen to know if I could use what was left in the brooder.

I will head over to that link for a read once I have worked through the morning info. Thanks for sharing

Hi Ben,
When I brood chicks with a mother hen I use straw in the broody pen (As pictured in profile pic).
When I hatch chicks via incubator and brood them myself I have them on pine shavings for about 3-4 weeks. When they move into the grower pen at 4 weeks, I put them on to straw. This is my routine and I have never had any problems. I have used Lucerne Chaff in the place of Pine Shavings before but found it messy and It doesn't absorb the smell as well as the wood shavings.

You will need to post some pics of your blue boys when they feather up. It can be tricky choosing. A lot of the time the darker boys turn out better in the long run. My Rooster had Beautiful defined lacing when he matured but looked like this at 5 weeks old.

Hmmm, I will wait a little longer before picking. I also think behaviour is a big part too so I want a chance to monitor that too.

Is your grower pen heated at night? We have our 4 week olds still in the brooder at night with a 75w heat lamp, but they are in the temp run with no heat during the day. I was thinking since it is warm now I can probably cut the heat lamp away all together soon. I just am not sure with some males not as well feathered out as the females.

 

[CB and CG]

Hi Ben, yes our grower pen is heated at night when they are younger but obviously once they get the feathers and the weather warms up we stop using it. I think with our latest batch of chicks we stopped heat at 5 weeks and they coped fine. We did however put them in a cage in the grower pen so they would stay huddled up at night to keep warm. By 7 weeks old our chicks are always perching.

 

[Wrightsx4]

About 4wks I dropped our bulb down to a 40 watt -the under feathered ones caught up quick like they just needed a little motivation.
I like the sand idea for the brooder. Haven't tried it yet but maybe next time. I always use pine shavings, but I'm surrounded by pines so they're cheap around here.

 

[babyfoot]

I use pine shavings when using a mother hen as the straw isn't so easy to clean but the downside is the chicks will eat anyhting when little. I hunt around for pine shavings that are larger than normal, after three weeks it doesn't matter so much and I can revert to the smaller shavings. I only use straw around the hens never hay, I've read that hay can cause respiratory problems but then again I've heard some say that small shavings that are almost dust can cause respiratory problems too. Seems we can't win

 

[Bens-Hens]

Yeah I keep to straw. I tried a loose bag of hay when I could not get straw and the girls tossed it all out looking for the seed's.

I got some phone pics today of the chicks. I will download them and put some up later this afternoon. Of course, I really wanted some pics of the two blues, and they were least cooperative!

 

[EverMystique1]

I gawked at that $20 pibe shavings comment. I paid $6 or 7 fir mibe, and only then because I was too lazy to go outside and make my own.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Shavings here are $40 lol. It's a compressed block and you do get a bit from it, but still $40!

I do have a plane and can make my own, but I don't really fancy buying perfectly good pine timbre then spending a couple of hours reducing it to shavings.

I do know of a local supply of thin bamboo though, which I did briefly consider putting through a shredder to make chips. I think I will stick to the straw and chip mix for now, then consider the sand next time around.