Brooder bedding

[Silkie Princess]

I don't currently have any chicks in the brooder but just interested, what brooder bedding do you use?

 

[Iluveggers]

Off the recommendation of many on BYC, I am using puppy pads. Pack of 100 large was 20 bucks, and changing out once in morning & once at night gets me to about 2 weeks (The first few days they were in a small crate and needed 1 pad to cover, in the large brooder 4 pads will cover. At that point I’ll keep one layer of padding to protect to bottom of the brooder, and put pine shavings in.

 

[Silkie Princess]

Off the recommendation of many on BYC, I am using puppy pads. Pack of 100 large was 20 bucks, and changing out once in morning & once at night gets me to about 2 weeks (The first few days they were in a small crate and needed 1 pad to cover, in the large brooder 4 pads will cover. At that point I’ll keep one layer of padding to protect to bottom of the brooder, and put pine shavings in.

I also used puppy training pads for brooder bedding. Worked great. Easy too clean out too

 

[Smashlee83]

Puppy pads work awesome for the first week, then on to shavings with the pads underneath.

 

[3KillerBs]

In my Outdoor Brooder I laid down a pavement of still-compacted flakes from a straw bale to insulate the chicks from the still-cold ground then topped that with large flake shavings. For the first few days I covered that with paper towels.

You can see it all here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/introducing-the-ideal-dozen.1469451/

 

[jreardon1918]

First couple days, paper towels in a cardboard box. Then outdoors to the run and deep bedding.

 

[yakitori]

I do a kind of indoor deep bedding for mine. Fine pine shaving from pine pellets and a coarser layer on top inoculated with some bokashi bran. I use it from day 1. bedding is about 1.5in deep. I probably wont be changing it out for the entire brooding period (4-6 weeks).

Chicks are currently 1 week old, and havent spent most of their time indoors. Normally I would put them outside during the day, but these two started to protest nonstop when left alone outside.

 

[rosemarythyme]

My current approach is to rake up a bunch of run litter and make a mound, and sit the brooder on top of that. So the flooring is just the deep litter that's already in the run, and by mounding it several inches it allows any rainwater to drain through very quickly.

 

[gtaus]

I used a couple inches of wood chips from day 1 in the brooder. For the first 2 days, I put some paper towels on top of the wood chips. After the paper towels were removed, I just used wood chips. Every few days I would fluff up the wood chips to keep them fresh. Maybe once a week I would additional wood chips to the top. After 8 weeks in the brooder, I had about 6 inches of wood chips in the brooder, but they never smelled and I never had to bother to clean out anything until the chicks left the brooder for the main coop.

I have tried other systems such as sand and straw, but even if you constantly clean those systems, I always had problems with smell. Using a deep litter of wood chips starting in the brooder has been the least effort and maximum benefit I have ever used.

Let me add that, where I live in northern Minnesota, I buy my chicks in early spring when it is still freezing outside. I have my brooder set up in my attached garage. I plan to have the chicks in the brooder for about 8 weeks before it is warm enough for them to transfer outside. So not having to clean out the wood chips and using deep litter has saved me a lot of effort.

 

[Carson213]

i use 4" of straw. the brooder is the size of a horse stall. i'll change it once a year