Don't use newspaper in your brooder.

[GC-Raptor]

I use paper towels on top of pine shavings for a couple days. .
I put the waterer in and make sure they are all drinking.
I sprinkle Chick feed on the paper towels.
When they associate Chick feed as food, I put the feeder in. .
The third day I remove the paper towels. .
These are the girls yesterday at 16 days. . GC

 

[Butchers Wife]

Yes, agree. Newspaper causes splayed legs and is messy and stinky. I use old bath towels weighted down at the corners myself, but just about anything is better than newspaper.

I've got a batch of 80 Ringneck pheasants in a big plastic storage box with a few inches of hay on the floor and then covered that with a bath towel. I think lifting the towel off the floor just a little bit helps it to dry faster, stay dry longer. I ran a heavy rope around the entire edge of the towel. It's a death trap under there. Dry bedding and dry chicks are half the battle. I keep them in the house for a week, until I change from jar lids to a standard waterer. Dirty and not healthy for me I know. And in a week I'll have another set of hatchlings. But they're so fragile! I think I'd have to sleep in the barn with them for the first few days at least. Finally it's off to the barn where their trough turned brood box gets a few shovels full of dry garden dirt to sop up moisture. I keep a fresh bin filled and ready to move into. I dump the dirty box when I have time to hose it out and set it up for the next change (seems like bins only need changing out when I've got a dozen other things I should be doing). I top the hate dirt with grass clippings or whatever soft fluff I can rake up. That usually gets at least a day to wilt and dry up before I need to swap it out again. Then it gets ridiculously out of hand and I revert to a deep litter because I never seem to have all my little chick runs up and running in time. I get overwhelmed with hatches and swapping bins and saving chicks who will literally drown each other in a teaspoon of water. I have plans for building a proper brood barn. Probably should have done that before putting 500 eggs in the incubator. Oh well, I work harder under pressure.

 

[yakitori]

My favorite is horse pine pellets with sweet pdz mixed in. I use it for everything!
Cat’s litterbox, coop, run, brooder...

 

[JedJackson]

I've got a batch of 80 Ringneck pheasants in a big plastic storage box with a few inches of hay on the floor and then covered that with a bath towel. I think lifting the towel off the floor just a little bit helps it to dry faster, stay dry longer. I ran a heavy rope around the entire edge of the towel. It's a death trap under there. Dry bedding and dry chicks are half the battle. I keep them in the house for a week, until I change from jar lids to a standard waterer. Dirty and not healthy for me I know. And in a week I'll have another set of hatchlings. But they're so fragile! I think I'd have to sleep in the barn with them for the first few days at least. Finally it's off to the barn where their trough turned brood box gets a few shovels full of dry garden dirt to sop up moisture. I keep a fresh bin filled and ready to move into. I dump the dirty box when I have time to hose it out and set it up for the next change (seems like bins only need changing out when I've got a dozen other things I should be doing). I top the hate dirt with grass clippings or whatever soft fluff I can rake up. That usually gets at least a day to wilt and dry up before I need to swap it out again. Then it gets ridiculously out of hand and I revert to a deep litter because I never seem to have all my little chick runs up and running in time. I get overwhelmed with hatches and swapping bins and saving chicks who will literally drown each other in a teaspoon of water. I have plans for building a proper brood barn. Probably should have done that before putting 500 eggs in the incubator. Oh well, I work harder under pressure.

That does sound like hard work. Wow, I'm amazed you are able to raise so many by yourself. The idea of putting a little bedding under the towels is a good one. Will try that next time I brood chicks.

 

[Butchers Wife]

That does sound like hard work. Wow, I'm amazed you are able to raise so many by yourself. The idea of putting a little bedding under the towels is a good one. Will try that next time I brood chicks.

It's just like caring for 5 or 6 except all the cute little scoops and Tupperware containers are shovels and trash cans. It takes 20 minutes to feed and water 200 adult pheasants for an entire day. Actually, I don't need to fill the waterer every day. 7 gallons sometimes lasts for 2 days. We always qualify for free delivery and quantity discounts at the feed store. I just call and they come right out. If my hatches go well this year (400 more pheasant eggs in the incubator set to pop once a week) the feed mill might hang up on you just to take my call! LOL My husband does help me. He builds everything I can dream up. I paint everything he builds. He does almost all the work in the winter, especially watering from milk jugs when the water line freezes. I do almost all the work in the spring, hatching & tending chicks, and planting the veggie garden. We try to get feeding and watering down to minimum requirements of effort by the time the air conditioning season kicks in. We call it the Dump Run & Done. Hopefully the livestock have eaten all the garden veggies by September so I don't have to preserve anything. Then we make the hard decisions easier by asking ourselves how many gallons of water we really want to carry when the water line freezes from January through every last day of February. And we are both very thankful that we know how to turn zucchini into something our friends and neighbors are willing to pay money for.

 

[nuthatched]

I use puppy pads. They're absorbent, non slick, don't shred for chicks to eat, some come with sticky tabs to hold them down and they are easy to switch out.