The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[KPenley]

Love the ladder! What size wood are the roosts?

 

[delisha]

Is that just wood shavings on the bottom? Have you tried to use sand?

 

[aoxa]

These are so cute! You are a very good builder! I will take pictures eventually. Let me get my chicks hatched out to make them cute like yours! I am showing this to my DH so he can make me some baby ladders.

Thanks Delisha I was proud. Best thing I've built yet! Took me a good 8 hours though lol.

The lumber was around $40. If you used the green fencing that is plastic (they can't fit through the holes - not even silkies can) - it would be around $50-60 for the entire brooder. And that's Canadian pricing, which seems to always be more than your building supply prices.

The ladder was a little tricky as it was really tiny. I kept splitting the wood. Go for really tiny nails, or screws after pre-drilling holes so it won't split.

I still have that ladder. It has trained around 150 chicks this year. They loved it.

When I brooded chicks they still got fresh grass at dirt at young ages. At 5 weeks old they were free ranging. Some were free ranged at 2-3 weeks (even without a broody). I find that my birds are so used to chicks, everyone ignores them. I don't free range young chicks in the late fall though. Too much of a chance of them losing their way and chilling enough to die. The summer was nice and warm and even if they got lost, they would not chill.

 

[aoxa]

Love the ladder! What size wood are the roosts?

I'm not 100% on that. It was leftover from my FIL's many building projects. I think it was meant for nailing in carpet.. It looks like the stuff we came across when ripping up the carpet at our old place.

 

[aoxa]

Is that just wood shavings on the bottom? Have you tried to use sand?

I'm not a fan of sand. I'd rather use a shovel and scoop out shavings instead of sifting sand like a litter box. Sand here is really crazy in price as well.

 

[delisha]

I toss in dirt and bedding from my other birds, but I never did a sod patch..that is a great idea! I am going to implement that.

 

[aoxa]

I toss in dirt and bedding from my other birds, but I never did a sod patch..that is a great idea! I am going to implement that.

It's such a simple thing to do and it brings a lot of fun to them. Once they are dried up or eaten down quite a bit, I'll put it back where I duck it originally and dig another one. That way I don't have holes all over. They seem to grow back really quickly.

 

[Pullet Surprise]

Any pictures of this Delisha?

My brooder is occupied by bantams right now. So I am using pack and plays I bought second hand (best brooders ever - so easy to move around!)



My brooder in the barn. Would have been cheaper if I didn't get hardware cloth.

It;s 2.5 feet wide x 8 ft long. I did it myself. I was so proud. My hands hurt like heck after though. That hardware cloth is not fun.



I could still get temps up quite high in early May. The hay bales helped. I took that thermometre out as it was metal and was not reading correctly.





They even had a practice ladder roost.

Looks like a great set-up! Love the sod idea too! I could even grow some in the house if the cats would leave it alone!

 

[KPenley]

I'm not 100% on that. It was leftover from my FIL's many building projects. I think it was meant for nailing in carpet.. It looks like the stuff we came across when ripping up the carpet at our old place.

Thanks. I wonder if 2 x 2s with small sticks across would work.

 

[Bulldogma]

Been blogging away this morning and now I'm about 5 pages behind - LOL!

Sometimes it's hard to get back on after falling off a horse... but now I'm ready to get back into the swing of posting regularly.

New Blog Post

And guest posts are more than welcome! If you have some good, natural chicken keeping information you want to share, feel free to PM me with your content!
(*All content shared on the Natural Chicken Keeping blog is subject to editing for grammar and spelling... because I'm just mean like that - LOL!)

Thank you all for your support!