They kept flying out of the crate

[Kanga77510]

The babies kept flying out of the crate/tub thing they've been living in. That means poop every where, potential for danger, and more. I found the perfect solution! Airline carrier crate for animals. It's hard sided, and just big enough for them to be comfortable. Food and water fit right inside. Awesome! I put a dark towel over it at night to help them sleep.

 

[Cornychick]

I had the same issue when I had our babies in our dining room! Luckily we had some wire mesh to lay over the brooder.

 

[Madcap621]

In a former life, I raised and showed toy dogs, so have quite a supply of crates/equipment that I have put to use. My 6 peeps made the 700 mile trip home from MD in a 8" x 10" x 10" Sterilite tote. Moved from there to a toy dog show crate, then a #100 dog crate, then a # 200. At 4.5 weeks they moved to the porch to a 4' x 4' x 3' high puppy play pen. This will be their home until they move to a coop [yet to be built - still deciding between tractor or fixed

] Thank God for dog equipment!

Madcap621

 

[gryeyes]

I have a 54 gal Rubbermaid tub - it's a long, curved sorta rectangular bin - housing my 8 chicks of four different ages and 8 different breeds. (Started with 4, when one died I bought 2 more, when another died I bought one more... now have 8 total). The two older ones have roosted on the lip of the bin for weeks now. This morning, two of the younger ones have joined them. OH! The brooder is in my only bathroom! I have paper down under the brooder and extending out about 8 inches to catch the poop from the roosting girls.

Occasionally I will open the bathroom door to find one of 'em standing in the middle of the floor. When I ask her what she's doing, she clucks and hops back onto the lip of the brooder, then back inside.

Yah.... poop on the floor. But I'm horrifically indulgent and the girls make me smile, so cleaning up poop off the bathroom tile isn't all that a terrible task. But I WILL be glad once I've got 'em all outside!! Two more weeks, I think, before ALL of 'em will be feathered enough to spend the night in the coop. I don't want to put 2 out, then add two more, etc, I want to put 'em all out at once.

 

[evonne]

dog crates are great brooders....
but on a side note... don't use wire anyhting for brooding ducks... they WILL poop outside an wall that is not solid... lol...

my hatchlings have been going into a hampster cage.. then at about a week i can safely put them into the rabbit cage.. but i still have to watch if they get ambitious they can slip out.... and my dogs think little round yellow things on the floor are tennis balls.. lol....

 

[toletiquesbysam]

We built a brooder out of plywood and had left the top open, we quickly learned that it needed to be covered! We used some plastic snow fence we had left over and I put some lath boards to give weight to each side and just zip tied the lath to the snow fence and draped them over the top of the brooder. This gave them air and I was able to easily see in but they could not get out.

 

[Tala]

I use a medium sized dog airline crate too. I chose it to keep the cats out as much as the chicks in. The wire type crate has too large of space between the wires, but the plastic airline type works great and you can put the light on the metal door that won't melt.

My dog moved up to the XL size so I had the medium already in storage. She can still fit in there, soo I still use it for travel since the XL is so freakin big it won't fit though the doorway without taking it apart. I just wanted her to have maximum space since she sleeps there while we're at work.