OK, fess up about your chick rearing habits!

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread

An aquaintance of mine was moaning about brooding twenty five chicks in her utility room the other day which set me to laughing because I once did the same thing in my guest bedroom - once. I told her that this was a common problem for homesteaders - young or sick animals that needed heated shelter and no good place to do it but inside the house.

How many of you folks have brooded chicks, poults, goslings, ducklings, whatnot inside your living space and what did you do to keep it from becoming a cleaning disaster or was it one?

You folks keeping kids, calves, colts and whatnot in the house can chime in too. In a week or so I'll print the list out and give her a copy of it so she'll feel better. I talked her into getting started with chickens and she's having serious second thoughts. I've got thirty of my own chicks coming in February and don't want to have to adopt hers too!

........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), January 24, 2002

Answers

Brooded in the spare bathtub and in the garage. Had a sick hen in the bathtub for 3 days-she never stopped laying.

-- Jim NE KY (Jedeweese@earthlink.net), January 24, 2002.

the kids room was always a mess anyway, so i figured what could be the harm in putting the chicks and ducklings in with them?

-- marcee (thathope@mwt.net), January 24, 2002.

about the above post....i meant human kids, not goat kids.

-- marcee (thathope@mwt.net), January 24, 2002.

Living room-chics in brooder, bathroom-50 eggs in the incubator. Seedlings everywhere. Daryll http://www.webspawner.com/users/twincreekfarm/

-- Daryll in NW FLA (twincrk@hotmail.com), January 24, 2002.

We did our first chicks in the enclosed shower, so I could hose it down every day! Seems like every winter I have to bring a goat kid or 2 in for a few days, they are in dog crates in the kitchen.

-- CJ (cjtinkle@getgoin.net), January 24, 2002.


I've raised chicks, turkeys, and ducks in the house. I keep them in a box with a plastic sheet underneath (on the table). When the box got nasty, every 2 or 3 days, I repaced it with a new one and composted the old one. Once I raised a lamb in the house. She trained herself to use a litter box (really a cut-down cardboard carton). She followed me upstairs, downstairs, all over. She didn't make any noise, never chewed my stuff...Hmmm, now I'm thinking of getting another housesheep.

-- gayle anne smith (gayleannesmith@yahoo.com), January 24, 2002.

Yup! Kept chicks in the bathtub and we've kept them on the dining table, too. We have an incubator on the way and it will likely go under the dining table.

We had a bathtub full of several large catfish for a week while we flushed the mud out of them before cleaning.

Had a bummer lamb sleep in the closet, too.

-- Just Duckie (Duck@spazmail.com), January 24, 2002.


Lambs and goat kids go into the old playpen. Chicks, ducklings, baby turkeys go into 1/2 plastic 55 gallon drums. Ducklings will be here next month and I plan on putting them in the kitchen for the first few weeks. Goat kids start arriving in 4 days so who knows where some of them might end up. Bought a huge dog crate that has a pull out pan under that might be better for indoor baby critters. Told my husband it was for the dog. :) Kept rooster and his hens in the basement one year since we had a week of -30 and they were freezing thier cones and wattles off. Easy to collect eggs. I think that all homestead houses should have an insulated lean to built right on the house with water, power and easy access from inside.

-- shari (smillers@snowcrest.net), January 24, 2002.

Have had a couple of occassions when baby goats came into the house for a time. Used disposable diapers - med. to large size, small won't work. I do not condone the use of disposables on children as a matter of course, but it is either that or some elaborate confinement method which still creates a big mess, so diapers it is. I have to use a small piece of duct tape on top of the back to keep it from sliding off.

-- Dianne Wood (woodgoat@pacifier.com), January 24, 2002.

One year I had a run on triplet goat kids and had SEVEN goat kids in our garden bathtub for a while. At the same time I had two incubators going, boxes of duck, chick, turkey, guinea and goose babies all over the place and a ton of seedlings started for the garden. My grown children about thought I had gone over the edge. One year I had a baby pig in a box behind the cookstove also.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), January 24, 2002.


Okay, I have kept baby chicks, ducks and guineas in the basement, and baby lambs in a box in the living room. I've also had the incubator in the spare bed room. And a batch of newborn pups in the bath tub. You just can't leave them out in the cold. Happy Homesteading!

-- cowgirlone in OK (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), January 24, 2002.

Most winters I keep my bantam ducks (adults) running loose in my cellar. Not this year because it has been a mild winter so far, and I miss them splashing all of the water out of the stock tank I keep there for them! Also the looks on visitor's faces when a whole lot of quacking breaks out from the cellar stairway! :)

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), January 24, 2002.

We always do our chicks in a child's swimming pool on the dining room table with the heat lamp hanging down from the chandlier. Of course, eating in the dining room is out until the chicks go to the coop and when someone comes by the house they think we have flipped a lid, but we have healthy chickens...LOL. Only place we have that has enough room!

-- Karen (mountains_mama@hotmail.com), January 24, 2002.

Ordered baby chicks (35) and ducks (15) and geese (4) and guineas (5) last summer... kept them in cardboard boxes for the first week or so, and then took an idea from my mother-in-law and started putting them in the bathtub. Laid a couple pieces of newspaper near the top end of the tub, and let some water sit in the bottom. I got a shower curtain rod which extended to fit the shower and hung a heat lamp off of it, which worked great. Each night, had to move them back to the boxes so we could use the shower. Was nasty cleaning the shower out each night, but much better than dealing with soggy cardboard boxes all the time (due to the water fowl LOVING the water, of course). As soon as possible, I had them all living in the chicken coop! Will be getting more chicks this spring/summer, since lost quite a few chickens to a predator in late summer.

-- ere (eedeen@hotmail.com), January 24, 2002.

Baby chicks and ducks in the kitchen, then to the basement and then to an outbuilding. We've had baby goats in the basement. We had 25 broilers on the front porch once, enclosed with wire and plastic. We had one house that was pretty close to ours but the neighbors there were wonderful about all of our "homesteading" projects (chicken tractor and run in the front yard once, between our house and their) because he would have done it all had he been in better health, but their family and friends that visited thought we were a little nuts.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), January 24, 2002.


Alan, can you and your friend spell "Be prepared?" LOL That must be fun raising them all indoors. I had a carpenter neighbor build me a 10 X12' building just for ducklings and what not. I do confess that any weak or extra tiny ones(like bantam ducklings)stay on the dining room table, in a large aquarium or Kitchen- Aid box, with a lamp over them and careful monitoring until they get stronger though. LOL What fun. LQ

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), January 24, 2002.

Old playpens are wonderful for puppies, and kittens. I gave my friend a playpen for her pigs! It works. We have had ducks, geese in the bathtubs. I have also used 1/2 bushel baskets for chicks and geese.

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), January 24, 2002.

One winter I had 5 bottle-baby lambs divided into 3 large crates in the basement (which is half-finished). I had to take them out for exercise several times a day. They were all stessed orphans from the farm where I worked and I was getting each on an even keel and at 4 feedings a day so I could put them in the baby barn. In the middle of all this chaos, my in-laws showed up for a visit. They stay in the guest room, which is also in the basement (as is my bedroom). My father-in-law is a retired extension professor, so I had a ready supply of advise the whole time they were there. I managed to get the lambs settled and on a decent feeding schedule, then managed to get my in-laws settled, and still retained my sanity...but I'm not sure how!

-- Sheryl in ME (radams@sacoriver.net), January 24, 2002.

My first batch of bantam day olds lived in the spare room in a improvised computer desk cardboard box "brooder" for a good while. it was january then & too cold for them outside. i must say, having them inside made them into some of the most loving pets since i spent so much time with them.

-- buk (noaddy@tiredofspam.com), January 24, 2002.

Well, we've had ducklings in my daughter's room and another batch in the room that used to be our son's. They've also been housed in the basement and the garage at various times. We've had a sick duck in the bathtub, dogs in the basement, and rabbits in the garage and the basement. The rabbits had a screen house, but the raccoons broke in and took the pellet feeders off the cages. Luckily, none of my rabbits were harmed. We have learned to be very flexible.

-- Kris in Wisc (kkwoestman@yahoo.com), January 24, 2002.

Well looks like I'm in good company and here I thought I was unique in starting some of my critters inside..... ok here goes... in the tub I have had Chickens, and turkeys and goats until they started jumping out then they went in the breakfast nook with kiddie gates and on a floor that i could easily clean... and also in a playpen... they would curl up on my feet while i was sewing...... or one i call Peppermint would curl up on my chest and sleep while i was on the computer....I have also started turkeys and chicks in the front room in big boxes..had 60 turkeys poults on year... should have seen the exes mouth hit the floor. And at the end of February im going to get a new flock of laying hens and probably a dozen turkeys..... and they will go in the tub......

-- Trina (trina@ccountry.net), January 25, 2002.

My pet Hampshire hog was raised in the house. He housebroke the first day.

I personally believe the day-old hatchery chicks do better if they have space. My brooder is in my kitchen. It is a 4 foot long dog cage x 2 1/2 feet wide x 3 feet tall. I attached 1/2 inch hardware cloth to the 4 sides to keep the little ones in. Hardware cloth is also attached about 6 inches up from the floor for the chick's floor. Their poop falls thru and they're not living in their droppings. I don't use bedding.

A 100 watt bulb in a reflector hangs at the back of the cage and the chicks have enough room to get away from the heat if they choose to do so. A blanket covers the top and 3 sides of the cage.

When the chicks are one week old, I open the gate. I have a 4 foot tall circle of hardware cloth around the cage. This gives the chicks a 10 foot diameter play area. I made a bridge of the hardware cloth and attached it to the cage so the chooks can easily leave/enter the cage. They can return to the cage whenever they choose to be near the heat.

The paper is changed daily and sprinkled with food grade Diatomaceous Earth so there's no smell.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2222@hotmail.com), January 25, 2002.


We always have our puppies in the house till they are over 5 weeks old. We've had lots of baby goats in the house for the night in the winter, but put them back outside in the morning. Hatched chicks for a long time. If you have a cement floor, cinderblocks can be arranged into little squares, and use all natural kitty litter, with heat lamps or just light bulbs. We move them around according to their age, so the bigger ones don't pick on the just born ones.

We had a filly pony foal in the house, in the laundry room for a couple weeks, bottle feeding her goat's milk. She kicked me really hard the first day many times. Her mama did not want her. Then she went into a small playpen area in the front yard with a tiny barn. I would go grab her and carry her in when the storms came. She slept on the front porch and always tried to get in the screen door. We would let her in once in a while. She is doing great today, going on 3 years old. We found her a 9 year old girl, and they are going to do 4H and horse shows together. I miss her.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), January 25, 2002.


It is so wonderful to know that I am not the only "odd" person on this earth. Been there done that-------Incubator and chicks in the basement, lambs-goats-piglets in the enclosed back porch, a baby squirrel in the kitchen all winter, baby turtles on top of the dryer. My favorite one is the winter I had a pair of expensive show chickens in a cage in the bathtub so they wouldn't freeze any thing off. And the topper----the power went out one winter and I Took the incubator wrapped in many blankets to my place of employment for 4 days-all were dissapointed that no chicks hatched while there. I didn't lose a single egg, all hatched. Thank you for bringing back all the memories-------------and by the way, I have a chicken in the basement as we speak, so I guess I haven't gotten all that civilized. bonnie in indiana

-- Bonnie Norris (queqid@att.net), January 25, 2002.

The worst experience with brooding in the house was with wild turkeys. For those of you who haven't experienced these birds the books I read said that in the wild they can fly to the top of trees at three days of age. In our house it certainly seemed like they could - they pushed the complete cover off the box and flew up into a cupboard pushing off a handcrafted art glass tumbler which fell onto a large hand crafted bowl before shattering on the floor. That accident cost about $75. As I was in the hospital, my wife had to figure out how to move them to the permanent brooder that I built into the chicken house that they easily escaped. I hatched 11 and butchered 5. The other terrible experience was gooslings. They smell vile even while changing the bedding twice a day.

-- kirby (kirbyj@deskmedia.com), January 25, 2002.

Got my nice big cardboard boxes from the grocery store after they are done selling watermellons in them, nice and big and roomey and strong. Last a long time and store easy, best I found next to a play pen.

-- Mary (marwel@microserve.net), January 28, 2002.

Things I've reared or tried to fix in the house: Lambs, chicks, rabbits, puppies, kittens, an owl, numerous wild birds. Brooded 100 chicks in the garage two years ago. Also had a lame chicken in the house in a pet-porter. It's legs were stiff and it couldn't walk. I exercised the legs manually every day, and after awhile that chicken was just fine............STILL don't know what the problem was..never saw it before and havnen't seen it since.

-- Dan (dshaske@excel.net), January 28, 2002.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ