Buyer Beware

It's week seven and the girls are getting plump, feathered out, and seem generally content. But at this point, I am almost literally counting down the hours until we get the coop constructed and get the chicks outside. Jake and I thought that it would probably be a good idea for me to write a post about what life is like living with chicks in your spare bath tub when they're seven weeks old so that those of you who might be considering getting chickens really know what you're getting into. Don't get me wrong, the experience is delightful and I would make the same decision in a heartbeat. Chickens have very unique and charming personalities and I look forward to seeing them everyday. But it has its downsides, which I think you should know.

Chicks are typically raised inside or in a brooder with a heat lamp until the chicks or pullets (young hens) are about eight weeks old or are fully feathered out. The cardboard-box-in-a-tub setup has worked out really well as far as the brooder size to chick size ratio is concerned. But when they hit about five and a half to six weeks, I began spending a lot of time fretting about the chicks' growing lack of space and about where I could transport them if I decided to try and find a bigger space. Create a bigger brooder (where, I don't know) for one more week?

Because they're bigger and more active, they do an incredible job tearing up the new clean newspaper and bedding I lay down. At this point, I clean out the brooder every day. And as soon as I get everything nice and cleaned up, I hear their feet happily scratching it all up again. I can't blame them – that's what chickens do. But as long as they're in such tight quarters, with so much energy to spare, it's what I have to do and it's starting to get old.

Jake and I will be furiously working to finish the coop this weekend and next week, I will start gradually easing them into their new digs. To help get them prepared, I've been turning the light off in the brooder at night. They are a little frantic at first being in the dark, but they eventually settle in to sleep for the night. Like I said, I've enjoyed many aspects of hosting these house guests, but I can't wait to take back my space. I'm sure my little hens will be much happier as well.

*Thanks to my student, Maddy, for the hand-drawn chicks and bees. She knows me well!

Ch-ch-changes

Since I started raising chicks in my bathtub, the water situation has been a problem. If you recall from one of my first chick posts, the water started drying up over night. That led me back to the feed store to purchase a larger, gallon-sized waterer. This was a little overkill for three small chicks, but I wasn't going to risk waking up one morning to three dehydrated chicks.

Once I switched to the large waterer, they didn't run out of water anymore, but it created a whole new set of problems. First, there was the balance problem. One large waterer plus a cardboard box plus a slightly concave surface (think of your bathtub floor) plus feisty, energetic chicks that jump all around and on top of it equals water leakage and soggy cardboard. So, I had to solve that fun equation by rummaging around in the garage to find an old board that I could put on the floor of the brooder. That mostly solved the balance problem, but the water challenges continued.

The second problem I faced was chicken scratching. Chicks and chickens naturally scratch at the floor with their feet and peck at the ground – like they're looking for worms. I found this fascinating when I was observing my day old chicks displaying this instinctual behavior. The only problem is that when you've got chickens in a confined space, eating and drinking from a feeder and waterer, that scratching and pecking can create quite a mess. I knew about this and was planning on suspending the adult feeder and waterer in the run that we're building outside. But for some reason, I didn't think I would be having to deal with this issue until then. I was wrong. Here's how most of last week went: I'd take the chicks out of the brooder, clean up all the old bedding and droppings, put down fresh newspaper and shavings, put the chicks back in, and then before I knew it, I'd have to deal with shredded and soaked newspaper and shavings from the frenzied chicken scratching. Not only that, there would be so many shavings in the water trough, I'd have to clean and refill it again too. I read in my books that chicks can catch colds and diseases from wet shavings, so I knew I had to deal with it quickly. After getting to the point where it felt like I was cleaning the brooder every ten minutes, I decided to start looking for some solutions.

That brings us to the ch-ch-changes I made to the brooder, which are turning out to be amazing fixes. I started by putting the waterer on top of two cement pavers that I had in the basement. I started with one, but found that Lucy could still scratch water out of it at that height, so I added one more. It turned out to be the perfect height for them to stand comfortably at the waterer and drink with ease. The ultimate test was watching them scratch the shavings around the feeder – only a few ended up in the waterer!

The second change I made was to make a cone out of paper to slip on top of the waterer to keep the chicks from roosting on top of it. Although I found it quite charming for the girls to jump up to get a closer look whenever I came into the bathroom, it created more work for me. Their droppings would get into the water and then I'd have to clean the waterer up again. I made an anti-roosting paper cone for the feeder too, for the same reason.

Finally, to save money on all the feed that I was losing as my chicks scratched it into the old shavings that I would ultimately clean up and throw away, I placed the feeder on top of an old terra cotta flower pot saucer, which I flipped upside down.

These changes were so simple and didn't cost a thing since I used found items, but man, have they improved my chicken-raising way of life! I don't mean to sound overdramatic, but all the brooder cleaning (Come on, two to three times a day?!) was getting to be a bit much. I can't tell you how many times I have gone into the bathroom since I made the changes, expecting to find a huge, waterer mess to clean up. But now, all I find are my fast-growing chicks!