cleaning brooder?

[ddrobinson]

My brooder is a large Rubbermaid tote, I have 8 chicks. They have been in there for four days, I have added a bit of clean pine shavings each day. How often should I dump and clean tote? There is no odor.

 

[SJchickens]

I have 6 chicks, and they make it messy pretty quick. Because of my OCD, I'm constantly "spot cleaning" their brooder and replacing them with more shavings. Every 2 or 3 days I have to remove all the chips and clean it. I could probably wait longer, but I don't like it getting messy.

 

[rides2far]

I think the cleaner you are, the less likely to have disease. I cleaned my brooders everyday for the first 2 weeks. Once I put them on shavings, every 2 - 3 days.

 

[Julia62]

I have paper towels on top of shavings (7 days old) and roll it up and toss it twice a day. Very easy. Their water stays clean that way too. It takes three long sheets overlapped to go across. I just have 3 chicks in a bath tub. I like them to be clean and happy!

 

[pmcont3]

We have 18 chicks, our brooder is 30"x 40". The chicks are 11 days old today, we received them at day 1. From day 1 we started them on puppy pads with a paper towel topping, the paper towel we changed out 3 times a day. At day 6 we added pine shavings on top of the paper towel, we divided our brooder in half with a 1 1/2" strip keeping the shavings at the red heat lamp end and the water and feed at the shavings free end (some what). Now I change out the paper towel at the water end 2 times a day and I change the shavings and paper towel at the heat lamp end once a day. The puppy pads I have only changed once.