How to clean shavings in brooder also how often?

[Willow's Meadow]

How do you guys clean your baby chick's shavings in the brooder? What do you use to scoop it out? How often do you clean out the shavings in brooder...everyday, once a week? Not adult chickens...but the baby chicks.

 

[MattalynsBarn]

I have a tray I just pull out. And I clean the brooder about twice a week

 

[Tomhusker]

New to using a brooder here, but I plan on removing the lid, the water bottle and the feeder.... and the chicks, then dumping the chips out onto the compost pile. Of course a brooder made from a tote makes this somewhat easy to do.

 

[Denninmi]

Moldy wood chips or other bedding can cause aspergillosis, a fatal pneumonia, so you really have to keep things clean.

I clean out turkeys and chickens daily, ducks twice a day (ducks are extra messy and also slop water everywhere).

Better safe than sorry.

 

[damselfish]

Take the kitchen serving spoon that's way in the back of the drawer...you know, the one that you hate & never use? Everybody's got one. It is now a poo scooper.

Scoop out all visible poo & all wet shavings from around the waterer. Stir shavings all over the brooder. Add more if things are getting shallow. If you do this once a day, you will be able to go multiple days before a full bedding change. Depends on exactly how many chicks and the size of the brooder.

P.S. Elevate the waterer on some stacked plywood "steps" (so the chicks can climb up them) and you will have fewer shavings in the waterer and fewer wet shavings on the floor.

 

[1_FnkyFrm]

Dust pan works great too...

 

[chickiyo]

I just got chicks last week, and I clean their cage every morning. We use paper shreddings instead of woodchips, as they seem to like it better. Oh, and we just put newspaper under the shavings and pull it out and throw it away, then put new newspaper and shreddings back in.

 

[sunflowerenvy]

i used a clean cat pooped scoop and i clean out the bed daily most of the time before dark i had 10 chicks now 10 teenager

 

[gryeyes]

I scoop out the noticeable poops and then add more shavings. The chicks will stir it up by themselves when they scratch in it (which they do). Basically, it's the Deep Litter Method even in the brooder.

I use a nipple waterer for the chicks, so there is NO water mess at all.

 

[dragonlair]

I use an old bathtub as my brooder. I line it with the multi-layered paper grainbags (Which I have TONS of) that I cut and opened up. I put shavings on that. When I want to clean it, I simply take the chicks out into another box, lift out the bags and replace.