Bigger Digs For Bigger Chicks

Our chicks are over twice as big as they used to be. That's great and all, but it means that they dump twice as much food all over the place and poop twice as much (at least). They are way too big to be comfortable in our old brooder set-up, so we got a bigger container for them:


This is easily twice as big as the old one, and probably more. It's much taller (although Abigail managed to get up on the side pretty quickly), and there's a lot more room inside for them to stretch and roost on the wooden bars Kirk made them:


We have big chicken wire over the top now, but it's not sturdy enough to use a base for them to walk on. In the old set-up, we had the wood chips beneath a screen, so that their droppings would fall through the screen and they couldn't eat them. They are older and hopefully wiser now, so we have them just in the wood chips this from now on. This has the added benefit of giving them something to scratch in, and they seem to be enjoying that quite a bit.


One last shot of the chicks for you. This isn't much of a close-up, but they have more feathers than even just a few days ago. Dolley is even starting to get feathers on her head, and Abigail looks almost fully feathered out. We are hoping that this big new brooder will last them until Kirk has a coop built and they are big enough to go outside to live in it (which will hopefully be just another couple of weeks).

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