Our new chicks are hiding in the closet!

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ChookHappy

ChookHappy

Dances with Chickens
10 Years
Joined
Oct 12, 2009
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Location
Petaluma, Ca
Hey everyone! We got a bunch of chicks the other day and thought we would be good to go in a big rubbermate tote but we ended up getting a dozen (way more than I thought we would be getting lol) so that was way too small. Looking around thinking to myself what to use... I was on pace to use the bathtub after seeing a pic the Warden had posted and was just about to start prepping it and it hit me. We have a small spare room that the girls use for a playroom and I've always thought that it would make a good brooder room. Instead of tearing the whole room up and splitting the room up the closet looked real cozy and inviting. So I grabbed my endless roll of 8mm plastic sheeting and a sheet of osb and slapped it together last night. I think they like it so far. My only concern is that they might want to escape. The wall is 2' high. I suppose I can just stick another half sheet up on top of the front piece if it comes to that. So what do yall think? It's roughly 5'x2.5' and 2' tall in the front. Any suggestions are certainly appreciated! Hooray for fuzzy butts!!

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Looks good as long as they cant peck and eat the plastic when they get a little bigger. They are super cute
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You could also use a small piece of chicken fence for a lid (or side if you prefer) so it will be a little easier than higher osb to get in there for their food and water. What kind are they??
 
OMG, I'd put chicks in MY closet if I had a spare one available.

Watch out for the dust that begins to accumulate, though. I brooded my 7 in my bathroom, and it was tough to clean up all the dust EVERYWHERE, even up on overhead light fixtures, after the chicks feathered out and went outdoors.

(But I'd do it again, trust me.)
 
LOL .. I raised 4 in our closet .. IN AN APARTMENT >.. I work for a hospital, so I picked up a big box every couple of days and traded the whole box out .. threw out the old, put down the new .. for four weeks .. then out they went!
 
Hehe yea if only my landlord knew..
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We live on a dairy farm so I'm sure he would understand...kinda maybe lol. .

I was curious about the plastic being a problem at a point. If it does happen I'll osb some walls together. I've become a big fan of the stuff this past year.
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We got 8 Ameraucana (I'll just go ahead and say EE from the get go though to save face), 2 Barred Rocks and 2 RIR. We have never had any RIR's but heard great things. The barred rocks seem to be personable and decent layers so I wanted a couple more for sure and my DW is an EE freak. She loooooves those crazy eggs and so we went for 12 of those originally but I had to talk her into a little variation.

I will go ahead and make up a chicken wire topper for it. Most likely get another sheet of osb and get the walls covered to have a resting spot for the topper.

As for the closet, it wasn't exactly free lol. This room is my daughters playroom and the poor girls already have to share their toys with the chickens food, DE, and all the other goodies that come with chooks lol. All of their toys are now in totes in their room. They were less than thrilled lol. So now I'll be reworking their toys back into the room. I asked them to fill a tote for goodwill and that was no problem to my suprise. They have faith in Santa still lol. That darn guy gets all the props...

This was going to be a temporary thing but now that I have this all set up and it's going to be up for at least another few months I'm considering just leaving it up, you know, just in case...

My wife works for a grocery store so our first plan was to do the same thing texasgal lol. Just keep switching them out constantly. I think we would have but DW went a little crazy at the ol feed store. We are both real bad enablers when we get together.
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Chickens in an apartment!? That would be crazy! My sister has a neighbor underneath her that has chickens as well. Keeps them on the balcony. They took over the entire porch lol.

So now I'll be turning half the run into a coop. Or building a new run for the new coop and then making the current run into a big coop... I dunno. All I know is I have until they are feathered out to figure out where they are going...
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If I put 25 chicks in a small brooder (49" x 19" x 14") and separate by 1/2 in 1-2 weeks to a larger 5' x 2' x 2' brooder ( .5 in each). and finally split them by 1/3's @3-4 weeks to a crate 3' x 4' x 2.5'. This would be thinning the crowd out as they enlarge and would meet the 1 sf/bird from 0-6 wks old.
 
So the 2 foot wall lasted all of one day before I walk in and see one these flighty little Ameraucanas up on the top.
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Little jerk is making us improv a quick net that the DW is whipping up with her mad crocheting skills!
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For the time being we have a piece of chicken wire kinda sewn to the pole lol. Ugh.. I thought for sure we would have at least, well I thought we would have more than one day to fix the minor design flaw. They really have been keeping me on my toes. I'll update soon with a pic of what this crocheted aviary net thing will end up looking like. I'm excited to see what it looks like, and how well it works hopefully lol.
 
When my chicks were in the Bathroom Nursery, they learned to get on the edge of the brooder (a 54 gallon Rubbermaid bin) fairly soon. They were SO cute up there! I added a small "roost" bar in the bin, and they used that for sleeping, but they still hopped up to check things out from the edge of the brooder.

I never put a lid on it. Only once did I come home from work to find a cold and hungry chick on the bathroom floor, but she was hanging out near the brooder at the heat lamp end. As far as I could tell, she never jumped out again until she was able to hop back IN.

After a while, as they grew, they'd investigate the bathroom some. I'd open the door and they'd look at me quizzically, then jump back to the edge of the brooder, like "Oh, I was just ummmmm looking around...."

Yah, they occasionally pooped on the floor or on the sink countertop, but that wasn't that big a deal for me to clean up.

But I guess you can't do that in a bedroom.
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hummm
then I thought how about the shower stall in my son's bathroom... it was veto'd
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I thought the two person whirlpool in my ensuite would be perfect...it was veto'd...
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then I thought well the main bathroom has shower doors on it... that would be perfect... it was veto'd
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What is wrong with the men in my life!
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LMAO yall are too funny!! Yea there really is no voice of reason over here, kinda scary. I have to act as that voice when things get outta hand but even that doesn't always happen. After all the closet was my idea lol.

We still have the chicken wire up and it seems there have been no more attempted escapee's (sp?) since the first attempt. They really gotta get a good running start it seems to get them up there. It so funny, they are like little airplanes taking off. Dw has almost finished a net thing that she is crocheting and we will get that up. It should still be easy to get in there. I'm going to try smushing up a half an apple and see if they would like a treat. I'm sure they will lol. We haven't givin them any treats yet and they are 4 weeks so I'm sure they wouldn't mind.
 

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