Please sign this petition against TSCs new brooders

[Isadora]

I just want everyone to know, that TSC has finally been convinced. Thanks to everyone who signed petitions, emailed TSC, and supported the movement towards a change they made the announcement that they would bring back the stock tanks, and it’s happening in stores everywhere as we speak.

I was in tractor supply just yesterday (picked up some sweet PDZ for my poop boards ) and saw they had gotten rid of the tower brooder and gone back to stock tanks. All the chicks I had seen previously in the tower system looked fine. No dead chicks, no huddling, no excessive pasty butt, but I know that wasn't the case for every store.

 

[HeathenHavenHomestead]

Can someone explain what is actually wrong with the tower style?
At my local TSC I actually like the set up better then what they had before.
The chicks seem cleaner and better cared for and our all still sell out so fast they can’t keep them in stock.
The chicks always look happy and healthy, decent air flow and food/water looks full and clean always. When we asked about the tower style they said it helps them have more available to the public and they have someone designated as the “chick captain” to care for them on each shift including checking them hourly.

 

[neo71665]

They were different and the learning curve to use them was causing issues in some stores.

The problem is most stores gonna have issues with any method of brooder they use. Places have employees not trained to take care of fowl and/or just don't want to.

 

[CHlCKEN]

Can someone explain what is actually wrong with the tower style?
At my local TSC I actually like the set up better then what they had before.
The chicks seem cleaner and better cared for and our all still sell out so fast they can’t keep them in stock.
The chicks always look happy and healthy, decent air flow and food/water looks full and clean always. When we asked about the tower style they said it helps them have more available to the public and they have someone designated as the “chick captain” to care for them on each shift including checking them hourly.

The towers are death traps. Basically the chicks in them are dying at an alarming rate due to several factors, a large one being that they were receiving little to no heat thanks to the poorly designed radiant heater inside. Also, they make it m a lot harder to manage the chicks inside from what I’ve seen. Unbelievable pasty butt in nearly every store.

 

[HeathenHavenHomestead]

The towers are death traps. Basically the chicks in them are dying at an alarming rate due to several factors, a large one being that they were receiving little to no heat thanks to the poorly designed radiant heater inside. Also, they make it m a lot harder to manage the chicks inside from what I’ve seen. Unbelievable pasty butt in nearly every store.

Hmmm it must be just certain store issues. I bought 16 chicks - no pasty butt on any as well as all the ones in the tower looked happy and healthy. I’m all for animal rights but this is going to be hard to get a company to change when it’s not an issue across all stores.

 

[chickentrains]

The store near me went back to the old set up.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

The towers are death traps. Basically the chicks in them are dying at an alarming rate due to several factors, a large one being that they were receiving little to no heat thanks to the poorly designed radiant heater inside. Also, they make it m a lot harder to manage the chicks inside from what I’ve seen. Unbelievable pasty butt in nearly every store.

Nearly is almost certainly an over exaggeration

 

[sourland]

That’s entirely true, but I think the cons on the new one outweighed those on the old one.

It's a husbandry issue - not an equipment issue. At my local TSC there were far more problems with the large tubs.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Its a heat plate, NOT a radiant heater like a heat lamp - and as long as people don't know the difference, employee and posters both - there will be problems.

Hint: To get much of any effect at all, you need to be in contact with a heat plate. Its temperature across its surface is generally even (ish).

Radiant heat sources like heat lamps will burn you if you touch them, and radiate heat in the infrared spectrum, while their surfaces can be in excess of 550F - hotter than your kitchen oven. The center of the area they focus upon is hottest, falling of as you move away from the center (how fast depends on distance from bulb to surface, but its an exponential, not linear, relationship).

One of the more significant issues with the brooder towers (which are NOT new technologies) is the lack of significant adjustment for those heat plates, to be able to further lower them into the boxes. Training and good management would dictate that employees not put several day old Banties in a box with a fixed (high) height heat plate, but rather reserve that for the ducks, while placing the Banties in one of the boxes that can be adjusted (and adjusting it appropriately)

The other, of course, is people thinking that they are radiant heat sources.

 

[CHlCKEN]

Nearly is almost certainly an over exaggeration

Okay, well my local store never even used the new brooders so I’m going off of what I’ve seen throughout the internet, and of course I haven’t done extensive research into this so I’m not entirely sure what the percentage of stores with excessive pasty butt is.