This is my first time raising chicks. I currently have 3 grown chickens and cleaning their coop is so easy. Thier poo is much larger, obviously, and I use a kitty litter scoop to clean. But, how do you clean a chick brooder? Their poo is so tiny and in the pine shavings, I can hardly see it. How do I scoop it out without being wasteful of the shavings?
I'm fairly new to this, so my answer may not be the best, but I've been doing a lot of wasting... I take all the shavings out and replace with fresh shavings. I'll be interested to hear what others do.
I have a kitty scoop and rake out all the soiled litter and replace with new weekly. You may want to wear a mask(it's best if you do). If i notice that the litter is really soiled or wet I change it sooner, I also add some from time to time to keep dry. Important things are dry and no molded foods and in my case(they're in my basment) smell
I just clean out the whole thing too. Shavings and all. It doesnt have to be done as often as you might think. In fact I just added fresh shavings for a few days. Then cleaned out the whole thing and started fresh, every 5 or 6 days. Of coarse it depends on the # of chicks and size of brooder. Ours was rather large and held 12 chicks.
I clean all of the shavings out once a week. I add a little bit of new pine shavings everyday and I stir the whole thing up 2 or 3 times a day. I have my waterer on a piece of wood (it soaks up the water that they splash and keeps the shavings dry), I have two that I change out, clean and dry (in the sun) everyday.
I change ours every night....we have a good sized brooder...starting to wish it was taller tho!! but anyway it has wire mesh that they stand on and I put paper down and then the pine bedding on top of that over about 1/2 of it...that used to stay fairly clean but now these past few days they are really starting to tear the place up! the Poo falls thru the wire bottom into trays that we pull out and change the paper in each night too....we have 28 of them in there so at 2 1/2 weeks old they are getting rowdier!! So much fun tho!
Well, first of all, I don't use shavings My chicks are on fluffy paper shreddings right out of the shredder. What I do, is every day or every other day I take them out and I use a shovel to scoop all the paper out and I throw the dirty paper right in the burner barrel. And they are happy and clean
SilkieChicken, how do you keep your chicks from slipping out from under your brooder when you move it?
you move your chicks to a temp brooder.then you empty the shavings out.an let the brooder dry a bit.then put new shavings in.an put chicks back in their brooder.