Indoor Chick Brooder

[CubbieFan88]

I highly recommend a brooder that opens from the side, not from the top. Chicks have an instinctual fear of death from above (aerial predators) and will be more afraid of you if you reach down from the top. Also recommend a brooder that’s not opaque - or at least not on all sides - so they can see out and get accustomed to sights and sounds. And raise the brooder up on a table, not on the floor, so you’re at their level and not looming above. All this will make the chicks less afraid and more accustomed to you and the world.

Raise the feeder and waterer on a brick or wooden block to keep them clean. At the level of the chicks’ backs. They don’t need to bend down to eat. The higher, the better.

Play sand works great as brooder bedding! I’ve been using that for two years now and I love it. Quick and easy to clean, and less wasteful, because you don’t have to keep throwing it out like soiled shavings.

Here’s my brooder setup from this year. I loved it!
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/diy-chicken-tv-brooder-v2-0.76524/

Thank you so much for the input. I have jotted down several of your tips with plans to follow them. The play sand is an amazing idea. I love the idea of the easy clean up with much less waste. My plan was to use 2 clear storage tubs (connect them together one tub would have puppy pee pads as the floor that side would have food/water then the other tub would have traditional brooder bedding) and adapt the lids with chicken wire. But your point about aerial access gives me reason to pause & reevaluate that. I'll be sure to put the brooder on a table this time I love the idea of them seeing us & getting more used to things. Your brooder set-up is amazing! Thank you for sharing it.

 

[CubbieFan88]

No problem! Brooder plate just seemed safer to me, so I went with that. Good luck!

Thank you! We are excited. I want to optimize any kinks I had last time & you all have given me such amazing input. My husband is already working on further fortifying their chicken area so we don't have a repeat. Our poor turkey seems so lonely lately all by herself in the yard.

 

[CubbieFan88]

I use a chick watered propped up on a piece of wood to keep the shavings out for the first week or two until they are strong enough. After that, I switch them to a rabbit water bottle mounted on the side of the brooder. No mess at all!

I have also used a sock and some yarn around the chick waterer jug part to turn it into a hanging waterer. Then you can hang it off a stick stuck across the top of the brooder, and tie up the yarn slowly as the chicks get bigger. They can typically kick shavings to the middle of their torso height, so if you raise the waterer up to back height, they can reach in just fine but most of the shavings will stay out. This requires a fairly tall brooder though.

This is some great feedback on the waterer! Last time we struggled with a messy water situation and repeatedly soiled food & shavings from the amount of water splashing. Thank you!

 

[K0k0shka]

Thank you so much for the input. I have jotted down several of your tips with plans to follow them. The play sand is an amazing idea. I love the idea of the easy clean up with much less waste. My plan was to use 2 clear storage tubs (connect them together one tub would have puppy pee pads as the floor that side would have food/water then the other tub would have traditional brooder bedding) and adapt the lids with chicken wire. But your point about aerial access gives me reason to pause & reevaluate that. I'll be sure to put the brooder on a table this time I love the idea of them seeing us & getting more used to things. Your brooder set-up is amazing! Thank you for sharing it.

Glad I've been helpful! The setup and effort put into it also depends on what kind of chickens you want. Some people aren't aiming for pet chickens, so it doesn't matter as much to them if the chickens act skittish. In that case, any type of brooder will do. In my case though, mine are pet chickens, and I wanted my kids to be able to interact with them easily, so I needed to remove any factors that would play against that. Like the top down access. I wanted the chicks to be as friendly as possible - and they are! Last year's brood is over a year old now and they still let my kids pick them up and carry them around. This year's brood is even friendlier. So this setup and these tips are especially aimed at raising friendly, pet-level chickens

 

[CubbieFan88]

Glad I've been helpful! The setup and effort put into it also depends on what kind of chickens you want. Some people aren't aiming for pet chickens, so it doesn't matter as much to them if the chickens act skittish. In that case, any type of brooder will do. In my case though, mine are pet chickens, and I wanted my kids to be able to interact with them easily, so I needed to remove any factors that would play against that. Like the top down access. I wanted the chicks to be as friendly as possible - and they are! Last year's brood is over a year old now and they still let my kids pick them up and carry them around. This year's brood is even friendlier. So this setup and these tips are especially aimed at raising friendly, pet-level chickens

Oh ours are definitely pet chickens. My girls named them all with love & fun. Its what made it so hard finding those dogs in our yard just doing it for fun. My girls are young too (5 & 6) we brooded those chickens when they were 2 & 3. They remembered brooding them. It was a hard loss.

 

[K0k0shka]

Oh ours are definitely pet chickens. My girls named them all with love & fun. Its what made it so hard finding those dogs in our yard just doing it for fun. My girls are young too (5 & 6) we brooded those chickens when they were 2 & 3. They remembered brooding them. It was a hard loss.

I'm so sorry about what happened to you. My kids are young, too, and I totally understand. What are your town laws? Are dogs allowed to roam loose like that? Or was it a one time escape? I know every area is different, but I'd be furious if this happened to me and I'd want action taken to prevent it from happening again. In our town, dogs are not allowed off leash in residential areas (except in designated dog parks) and if I found dogs murdering my pets on my own property, there'd be some serious trouble for the dogs' owners and the police would be involved.

 

[CubbieFan88]

I'm so sorry about what happened to you. My kids are young, too, and I totally understand. What are your town laws? Are dogs allowed to roam loose like that? Or was it a one time escape? I know every area is different, but I'd be furious if this happened to me and I'd want action taken to prevent it from happening again. In our town, dogs are not allowed off leash in residential areas (except in designated dog parks) and if I found dogs murdering my pets on my own property, there'd be some serious trouble for the dogs' owners and the police would be involved.

Technically they are supposed to be in their yard or on a leash. But our particular subdivision is a bit neglected. Its kind of like the old west I half-joke at times. The area is outside of Houston. Its part rural, part suburb. There are city ordinances, but in our subdivision in particular a lot gets overlooked. Most dogs are either fenced or chained, but there are also a fair number that just wander at will too. In the case of our neighbor they were struggling to keep the dogs in. For 3-4 weeks before the incident all 4 of them kept escaping. At most they riled our dogs up which was annoying but no real harm. So we just minded our own business. However that morning it became our business when I had to chase all of them out. The irritating part for me was they saw me cleaning up the bodies (they were just doing to do it, not eating them, just kill & move on to the next) and neither of them (his wife or him) didn't even come over to apologize. He waited till my husband came home to apologize & even then my husband had to go to him. He profusely apologized to my husband & when my husband came back he said he felt we should just leave it there that the guy was embarrassed and felt bad and we shouldn't make waves with our neighbors. It'd take another 2 weeks for him to eventually find a solution to keep all 4 dogs from escaping again. Occasionally the ring leader of the 4 will still get out now and then while they are at work and he'll go home shortly before they get home. They are German Shepherd-Bull Terrier mixes which with that particular breed mix none of the situation surprises me. You have intelligent, stubborn dogs with a high prey drive cooped up in a small yard with no stimulation other than each other or plotting escape.

 

[K0k0shka]

Technically they are supposed to be in their yard or on a leash. But our particular subdivision is a bit neglected. Its kind of like the old west I half-joke at times. The area is outside of Houston. Its part rural, part suburb. There are city ordinances, but in our subdivision in particular a lot gets overlooked. Most dogs are either fenced or chained, but there are also a fair number that just wander at will too. In the case of our neighbor they were struggling to keep the dogs in. For 3-4 weeks before the incident all 4 of them kept escaping. At most they riled our dogs up which was annoying but no real harm. So we just minded our own business. However that morning it became our business when I had to chase all of them out. The irritating part for me was they saw me cleaning up the bodies (they were just doing to do it, not eating them, just kill & move on to the next) and neither of them (his wife or him) didn't even come over to apologize. He waited till my husband came home to apologize & even then my husband had to go to him. He profusely apologized to my husband & when my husband came back he said he felt we should just leave it there that the guy was embarrassed and felt bad and we shouldn't make waves with our neighbors. It'd take another 2 weeks for him to eventually find a solution to keep all 4 dogs from escaping again. Occasionally the ring leader of the 4 will still get out now and then while they are at work and he'll go home shortly before they get home. They are German Shepherd-Bull Terrier mixes which with that particular breed mix none of the situation surprises me. You have intelligent, stubborn dogs with a high prey drive cooped up in a small yard with no stimulation other than each other or plotting escape.

That really sucks. People like that shouldn’t be allowed to keep dogs. Especially not a whole pack of them! If you don’t want to go to the authorities, your only other option is defense. Do you have any kind of firearms? What are your defense of property laws? This being Texas, I don’t suppose it would be judged too harshly if you shot a dog that was on your property destroying your livestock. It would just be defense. And maybe the dog owner would then try a little harder to keep his dogs off of other people’s properties. I’d feel bad for the dogs, as it’s not their fault, but unfortunately animals often have to pay for their owners’ shortcomings. Chickens aside, with small children you have every right to feel concerned and threatened by large dogs breaking into your yard. It would be self defense and defense of children. You’d be justified.

 

[Floof]

I would tell the neighbor to run a hot line around his dog yard or risk getting the dog back in a bag. How horrifying that he has dogs running wild that rip up other people pets and he doesn't see it as enough of a problem to even face you directly to apologize. A good neighbor would have immediately apologized and offered to replace the dead birds. A better neighbor would have acknowledged that they were irreplaceable as pets in the hearts of your children and apologized to THEM as well.

 

[K0k0shka]

I would tell the neighbor to run a hot line around his dog yard or risk getting the dog back in a bag. How horrifying that he has dogs running wild that rip up other people pets and he doesn't see it as enough of a problem to even face you directly to apologize. A good neighbor would have immediately apologized and offered to replace the dead birds. A better neighbor would have acknowledged that they were irreplaceable as pets in the hearts of your children and apologized to THEM as well.

Absolutely. This guy isn’t worth a coy and forgiving approach. He doesn’t care. He’s the bad neighbor, not OP. I still say go to the authorities, and if that doesn’t work, shoot the dogs.