Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[Werforpsu]

We use the plastic kiddie pools as brooders, with an inch or so of sand in them they are great for a broody and chicks for a week or so and the meat birds stayed in one for about 10 days....
If you have the room to store it I would say check the asking price for a new one and go for it. Lots of uses for something like that when raising birds!

We used a baby pool that we added sides and a "lid" to for our chicks. I just used old plastic tote lids with some cardboard at the joints for flexibility. The totes would crack and I saved the lids and I had a huge stack of them.

I love the idea of sand. We were not experienced and used pine shavings. dealing with spilling water etc was a pain. I loved when we changed over from a heat lamp to a heating pad cave.

 

[Werforpsu]

Good evening all:

Go get them Blarney!!!

Fisher, your girls are amazing!!!

Congrats on Mocha, she's a looker.....

Well, since the fox attack on my #1roo, my roosters have reshuffled the pecking order, #3 is now #1, #2 spends alot of the day hiding in the coop, and #1 is very deferential....maybe he'll get his game back if not, that'll leave me with Olive eggers not CCLs....

and, I am really getting the urge to get more chicks/hatching eggs....so far, I am part of DH's Sandhill purchase in the spring....and I am going to get some BLRWs in spring....grr...still thinking Americuna and Silkie....I need more acreage....

I would LOVE to have a couple olive egger pullets if you end up with chicks in the spring! They are so much more expensive from the hatchery then EE's. I like the idea of a multi colored basket of eggs!

You can count me in to the chick train this spring to make a trip from central PA to Malvern. I have friends there (graduated from GVHS) and can easily make it down for a trip.

 

[LadyBehir]

I agree that they send a lot in the mail.  We have donated to Operation Christmas Child for several years and I wish I could opt out of mailings by saying...'I will keep donating if you stop spending so much mailing things to me!"
thanks for the tip.  I saw that it was $20 for a "flock" of either chicks or ducks.  The price is good.  I wish I knew what a flock meant to them.  I would really love to know if the goal is to give them a group of hens and 1 rooster so that they can continue to get baby chicks and it becomes self sustainable.  To me, that would be preferable then straight run or females only.

Heifer is about sustainable flocks so I would assume mixed runs.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

We use the plastic kiddie pools as brooders, with an inch or so of sand in them they are great for a broody and chicks for a week or so and the meat birds stayed in one for about 10 days.... If you have the room to store it I would say check the asking price for a new one and go for it. Lots of uses for something like that when raising birds!

We used a baby pool that we added sides and a "lid" to for our chicks. I just used old plastic tote lids with some cardboard at the joints for flexibility. The totes would crack and I saved the lids and I had a huge stack of them. I love the idea of sand. We were not experienced and used pine shavings. dealing with spilling water etc was a pain. I loved when we changed over from a heat lamp to a heating pad cave.

WOW! That is ingenius. I use a baby pool with poster board. The poster board gets too cruddy after about a year or 2, doesn't wash off very well. The tote lids are a great idea, poster board can get expensive. What's going on there with your warmer? At first I thought you were providing more space and containing the heat with the drape over the top, then I realized it can also be a way to keep the mess down, another Great Idea! How do you keep it fastened on there?

 

[fisherlady]

Hey Western PA-ers! Help! Where can I find close-to-laying pullets for sale other than craigslist nearby??????
Any advice is welcomed!!!! Please and thank you

X2 on pennswoods, there are a few ads on there now that would work

sooooo..... THEY DID IT!!! 1st place in the nation! So proud and happy. These kids have been preparing for 3 years. I've never been to nationals before, I had no idea what a big deal this would be or how many teams would be here.

Thank you all for wishing us well. I appreciate it.

I agree that they send a lot in the mail.  We have donated to Operation Christmas Child for several years and I wish I could opt out of mailings by saying...'I will keep donating if you stop spending so much mailing things to me!"
thanks for the tip.  I saw that it was $20 for a "flock" of either chicks or ducks.  The price is good.  I wish I knew what a flock meant to them.  I would really love to know if the goal is to give them a group of hens and 1 rooster so that they can continue to get baby chicks and it becomes self sustainable.  To me, that would be preferable then straight run or females only.

Any charity should have someone available to hear complaints or ideas...if they aren't willing to listen to you as a donor and do something that simple then I think it is fair for you to take your donation elsewhere. Too many charities these days are 'pyramid schemes' in my opinion....yes they do some good, but less than half of what they bring in actually goes to the recipients and the rest is used for 'administrative costs'...often in the form of high salaries and advertisement for more money, which they have down to an art form. I think there are some watchdog type websites which can be checked to see if an interesting charity is doing what it claims and the percentages of where the money goes. Unfortunately in this day and age even charities should be shopped for and watched closely.

 

[fisherlady]

We used a baby pool that we added sides and a "lid" to for our chicks. I just used old plastic tote lids with some cardboard at the joints for flexibility. The totes would crack and I saved the lids and I had a huge stack of them. I love the idea of sand. We were not experienced and used pine shavings. dealing with spilling water etc was a pain. I loved when we changed over from a heat lamp to a heating pad cave.

I love the wall of lids idea! Try sand on the next brooder, we get the bags of play sand at Lowes for it, it is clean and no rocks....sort of like 'sugar sand'.... then just use a cat litter scoop to sift it out as needed or make your own sifter by cutting out a couple of large squares on a plastic dust pan and putting a fine hardware cloth over the holes then we drilled around the edges of the openings with a 1/8" drill bit and used small zip ties through the mesh and holes, then cut off the tag end of the tie. We also added a layer of hardware mesh to the cat litter scoop to make it more effective. To do fine sifting make one dust pan with one layer of hardware cloth and another with two layers slight offset for much finer holes.

 

[Werforpsu]

WOW! That is ingenius. I use a baby pool with poster board. The poster board gets too cruddy after about a year or 2, doesn't wash off very well. The tote lids are a great idea, poster board can get expensive.

What's going on there with your warmer? At first I thought you were providing more space and containing the heat with the drape over the top, then I realized it can also be a way to keep the mess down, another Great Idea! How do you keep it fastened on there?

I removed the duck tape and cardboard and stacked the lids under the deck ready for next time.


For the warmer, I found the info here, It is in the raising baby chicks forum. Here is the thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/956958/mama-heating-pad-in-the-brooder-picture-heavy-update

Basically, you use heating pads to create a 'cave'. Instead of using a heat lamp, you can use this cave method to keep the chicks warm. It is more 'natural' because it mimics a hen. The cave is supposed to be like the mama hen and how chicks will keep warm by getting under her.

Then the room can be dark at night. Also, the room doesn't have to be ridiculously warm (people say they have chicks with these in garages and barns as well as in a sectioned off part of a coop that is outside). There is less risk of fire, people say chicks feather out faster and the food and water are still cool. They come out to run around and then go back in to get warm. They will all sleep in there for a while in a big heap, but eventually, larger ones will sleep outside the warmth. Eventually they will be able to fly up on top and then some will sit there on the warmth.

The only drawback I saw was that a brooder can't have more then one because the chicks will all use one and if there are too many chicks they will suffocate each other to get in. SO, you would have to use multiple brooders for large quantities of chicks. Still people say you can customize them to fit different quantities of chicks. We didn't loose a singe chick and six of ours were only a couple days old from TSC. We were surprised not to loose any and while I would never assume that the heating pad caused that, we didn't have any temperature issues. The brooder was in our unheated basement.

 

[stake]

Hi @stake, where would you get your BLRWs from next spring?

The hatchery is Privett Hatchery....I will probably be doing a spring order with DH......if you are interested, ping either Dennis or me

 

[stake]

sooooo..... THEY DID IT!!! 1st place in the nation! So proud and happy. These kids have been preparing for 3 years. I've never been to nationals before, I had no idea what a big deal this would be or how many teams would be here.

Thank you all for wishing us well. I appreciate it.

WTG!!!!!!!

 

[stake]

I would LOVE to have a couple olive egger pullets if you end up with chicks in the spring! They are so much more expensive from the hatchery then EE's. I like the idea of a multi colored basket of eggs!

You can count me in to the chick train this spring to make a trip from central PA to Malvern. I have friends there (graduated from GVHS) and can easily make it down for a trip.

I will be hatching in the spring and will keep you in mind.....