meat birds and flooring material

[steveo]

When you get your meat birds and put them in the brooder do you put paper towels on the floor or do you just put shavings? With guineas I always put paper towels down for the first couple of days but with the new pooping machines I was thinking about just putting shavings in the brooder. What do you do?

 

[cockadoodle]

Their isn't really a difference between meat birds and layers when it comes to brooder bedding... right? Thinking there isn't...

Assuming their isn't... you can either put them on pine immediately, or first put some paper towels on top of the pine if you wanted.. I use compressed wood pellets now for my month olds (not meat birds). Lot's of choices when it comes to bedding. Use whatever is cheap in your area, my only advise

 

[fowlgirl]

cedar shavings for me,right off the bat,they may be small at first but in a couple days they will be like baby raptors and the paper you put down,will last 5mins!! Im doin 40this year and OH boy....what a mess! I bought a bunch of layers and one of them is a leg horn,well I was photographing the babes and in one photo I had a broiler and a leghorn,then mixed them up,the layers have a separate brooder than broilers. They look so much alike first few days.A week later,I got baby huey in the layer brooder and I found little foghorn with the meaties,looks same but alot smaller.

 

[steveo]

I always thought that cedar shavings were bad for a birds respiratory system

 

[jaku]

I do newspapers for the first three days. Sure, I heard it's not good for them, but I haven't had any problems, and it's not worth the cost of paper towels when newspaper is free.

 

[pdpatch]

For the first week or so until they are to big for the large plastic container brooders. we use old cut up blankets, then switch to course saw dust in larger brooder inside.

Depending on the temps, time of year they then go out to the poultry barn.

Tom

 

[quercus21]

We put newspaper down on top of wood chips for 3 days. After that, they are on the wood chips for the rest of the week.