Preparing for Chicks

The eggs should be hatching any day now and I wanted to get things ready for them ahead of time.  My brooder is a large aquarium that I borrowed from a friend a few years back and it's been working so well that I hope she keeps letting me use it.

I cover the bottom with a layer of newspaper first.  This will make cleaning it out much easier later on because I can simply roll everything up and throw it in a bucket to take it out to my compost pile.  Next I placed the food and water stabilizers in the corners of the aquarium.  I use a couple bricks for the water because I know they will keep the dishes level.  I also like them because they are porous and absorbent.  Chicks are pretty messy about their food and water, so I do what I can to keep them clean and dry.  The feeders are placed on top of a couple re-purposed plastic bowls which raises them up off the bottom a bit and makes them less likely to get filled with bedding when the chicks get to scratching and making a mess.  Finally I fill the whole bottom with a nice thick layer of wood shavings.  Some people say to start chicks off on just paper towels, but I like the nice thick layer for them to move around on.  It gives them something to scratch in and is very absorbent and helps keep the new chicks clean, warm and dry.  It also gives them a soft place to sleep when they crash (as they often do in the beginning of life).  When the chicks start hatching I will set up the heat lamp so that the space will be warm enough for them when they are ready to move into the brooder.

Soon there will the peeping of little babies in my back room.  The first few weeks of raising chicks are often the cutest and most entertaining weeks in the spring.  I look forward to this time every year.