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Kitty litter box is too small, get a mortar tub from Home Depot $8
Then do a bag of playsand (also at Home Depot) and dump it in, and a few big scoops of DE, MIX.
Get a cat pan spoon to sift the poops and crud out of it the birds will kick into it.
And the bestest and cheapest feeders are a 5 gallon bucket, cut a head opening in as shown, the birds cannot beak-kick the feed all over the floor.
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https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/50801_poultry_dust.jpg
This poultry dust can be added to the dust bath as well, it is organically based .
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take the top off the bucket...see how they cannot beak-kick the feed out on the floor ?
I have had every kind of feeder and they birds will beak it out all over the floor, but not this way.
With standard comb roosters, put the hole higher and larger..for chicks or youngsters, lower.
I have 5 gallon buckets that fit the birds I have, inside each coop.
Edited to add: I use compressed straw in the nest boxes, it is soft...the birds love it.
These compressed bales look small, but they are COMPRESSED and HEAVY and when you cut the string, they will take over the room!
But you will have plenty and the birds love it.
Each straw is run through rollers that smash it, so it has no hollows like a stiff drinking straw.
Regular straw is stiff, nonabsorbant and the birds cannot really get a nice curvy nest out of it.
This is just what I use.
Everyone has a way~~~
Thanks Chickie!
I love the bucket feeder! I have the Omlet feeders now, I had planned on moving them into the new coop as the hens can't waste food from those either, only they are so small that I have for fill them every other day, or daily when they are not free ranging. I'm loving your bucket feeder! DD's friend gave up on raising chickens. She moved here from CA over the summer with a bunch of birds (30-ish), all the same rare kind, though I can't remember what they were. She was in 4-H and showed them. Up here the birds got sick and half died in the first month after moving, then a raccoon pulled the parts of 2 more though the dog-kennel run ( they had it wrapped with chickenwire and a clear tarp between). She gave me abox full of feeders and waterers that were much too big for my Eglu set-up. I need to find that box again and see what is in it.
We have had sleet falling since 8 am, but nothing is sticking, just making the yard a slickery mess. Our yard is sloped so that only makes it worse. DS brought the eggs in from the coop earlier tonight and slipped and fell. It was already dark, the few eggs he found are all cracked so I boiled them and put them in a spinach salad. I'm really wanting to get the hens in their new house. Their current run will be a nasty mess by morning in this weather!
The gal at the Issaquah Grange sold me a bale of alfalfa hay and told me to put that in the nest boxes! Looks and smells more like food. I'll have to look for that compressed straw...
