Poll: The 'chickshaw' brooder
By Lisa Brunette
After I penned an update on our chicken project, a rather dramatic event (a near-tragedy!) occurred, necessitating some tweaks to the chickshaw brooder system.
Here’s the update first, in case you want to go back and see what I’m talking about.
Now let’s vote.
What happened will tug at your heartstrings, unless you’re pretty blasé. But I’m betting you’re a big goob like me…
One Sunday, the weather dropped to the 40s F after a long stretch of sunny, dry days with temps up into the 80s. We’d actually turned the heat lamp off a few afternoons, as the temperatures climbed so high that with the box-inside-chickshaw creating a sort of natural insulation, the chicks were starting to get too warm and avoided the lamp.
That cold, rainy morning, I’d freshened up the chicks’ bedding by adding more pine shavings on top, leaving the bottom layer to decompose. This is a “deep bedding” method recommended by homesteaders; instead of mucking out a coop each week, you basically turn it into a rotating compost system, which boosts the chickens’ health.
The chicks were fine when I left them, playing “keep away” games with a handful of sweet potato peels and spent herbal tea mash.
But later that day, I went out to check on them and was startled to find only four out of five chicks in the box.
The fifth had somehow catapulted herself out of the box, and she was lying on the bottom of the chickshaw!
Alarmed, I scooped her up to see that she was listless, her eyes closed. But still alive.
This was Fudge Pie, by the way, the fifth wheel. Maybe her solo status extended into adventurism that didn’t quite pan out the way she’d envisioned. I held her under the heat lamp, stroking her. She revived a little but would not drink water or join the others with the treats.
As you can imagine, I was pretty distraught. For those of you who are more seasoned, remember this is my first chicken rodeo, and as I mentioned, I’m a big goob, especially about small, defenseless animals.
I left Fudge Pie, aka ‘Jailbreak,’ under the lamp and mixed up a batch of the same medicinal drink I gave the chicks the day we brought them home: honey, crushed garlic, apple cider vinegar, and water.
But clearly, the box was too shallow to contain the chicks, especially after I added bedding.
Anthony and I debated bringing them inside… that way if they flipped out of the brooder box, they’d at least be inside our warm(er) house. But the sound of cheeps would definitely drive Chaco nuts, and he’d whine and paw at the door. If he slipped past us to get inside, it could quickly spell the end of a chick.
Plus there’s the issue of chick poop. Which is copious. And hardens such that it’s tough to scrape off. (Would make a great glue!) The only room we could use for the chicks is the same one we use for the starts that would have been in our (failed) greenhouse, and it has lovely, slatted, old-fashioned hardwood floors. Scraping chick poop out of those slats doesn’t sound fun, especially in a room you frequently use for (barefoot) yoga or physical therapy.
I found a much taller storage bin in the basement I repurposed for their brooder box. We were going to put them in that and bring them in, but then we realized it was tall enough to contain them in the chickshaw as before.
A bit of a gamble, I guess. But we kept thinking that these are outdoor creatures, not indoor pets. And like I said, the bin was much taller.
So we chanced it, and… a few days later, another chick (either Miney or Mo; I get them confused) flipped herself out of that bin. But this time it happened on a warmer day, and they’d grown quite a bit by then, so what alerted me to the situation was the sound of cheeping that didn’t sound like your average background neighborhood bird chirps. I peeked outside and saw her through the wire mesh side of the chickshaw, hopping up and down and complaining loudly about her situation. So I ran out there, scooped her up, and popped her back into the bin.
We added a cattle panel barrier to the top to prevent these brooder escapes, and so far, so good!
Miney/Mo was fine right away, and Jailbreak recovered. They’re all doing just fine now.
What’s your dramatic garden story?
Good to hear that the cattle panel trick is working. I'm surprised they could leap that high!