My chickens are driving me mad!!!!!!!!!!! Help me before I go insane!!

[Baby_Chick]

UGH!!! My 1 month and 6 day old New Hampshire Red Hens (I have 5 of them) they somehow made a huge mess of water and food on the floor of their brooder over night (I am using an old large dog cage with a removable tray). This is the 2nd time this has happened.
I need a way to elevate the feeders and waterers in a way that they won't knock them over. I have tried to put them on pieces of wood and also on cardboard boxes and that doesn't work, they just knock it over! I don't know what I should do to keep them out of their feed and water while making sure that they don't fall on top of them!!!! Any ideas or help would GREATLY be appreciated.

P.S. I have the round kind of feeders and waterers if that helps anybody...

 

[Punk-Rock_Chicken]

Try getting Hanging feeders. You can adjust the height easily.

 

[Baby_Chick]

Quote:
I was thinking that but I don't have access to any car right now so I need something that will work for now...

 

[saddina]

Mad? oh no no no, you can't help it, everyone here is mad.

Thank you for giving me a chance to quote my favorite book, now on to being useful.

I used one of those flat bricks, that people build patios of, they're 1x12x12 and put the food water on those.

 

[WalkingWolf]

How big is the pen? If it is big enough for a small bucket with a lid, drill holes around the bucket big enough for them to get heads through to eat. Find a old small sauce pan for the water, take off handle and weight it down with large rocks. They will only be able to drink down to just below the rocks keeping enough weight so it won't tip over. Another trick for the bucket is put the food on the in the bottom with holes, and cut a hole in the top for a bowl to sit in with the water. I used two gallon buckets from the store deli for free for this. They will jump up to get the water, you could reverse it if you want, water on the bottom food on top.

 

[pamperedpoultry]

If you have some empty milk cartons you can make feeders and water's out of them just cut a hole in the side and find ya some string to tie it up with.

 

[Baby_Chick]

Quote:
I love that combo idea! Such a space saver! I wish I had thought of that before! (Oh I don't know, when my chickens were a day old, that would have been useful!) I will wait for more ideas though... I want lots and lots of options to choose from!!

 

[Baby_Chick]

Quote:
Clever!

 

[rachiegirl]

Try rigging some perches for them if they don't have any and put something on top of or hang something from the top of the cage over the food/water to deter them from jumping on top. That is what mine were doing, trying to roost on top of the food/water and it would end up tipping over when they would fight over who was going to sit there.

Well I fixed their wagons, sent them out to the coop I did! Now they have plenty of appropriate things to roost on!

Naughty kids...

 

[briana1975]

That was the age mine started doing that. It was driving me crazy cleaning the brooder out 2 to 3 times a day. I went through 2 big bags of wood chips in 2 days. We worked our butts off all that week into the night to get the coop done and move them out to the coop that following weekend.