I would like to say a great big HELLO to Mrs. Keenan’s class who has been following the adventures of Tilly’s Nest in their classroom!

The chickens and Dolly are quickly out growing their space!  They were born almost 2 weeks ago.  They still had the old nesting box in the brooder.  They also continued to make a complete mess of the newspaper lining that I placed underneath of the pine shavings.  I contributed it to Dolly as she scratched and looked for goodies to share with the chicks.  I found myself constantly cleaning out the feeder and the waterer of pine shavings.  It was time to make some changes! I removed everything from the brooder and started from scratch.

 I elevated the waterer off the ground to prevent the pine shavings from being inadvertently scratched into the waterer.  Soon, I realized that it was too high for Percy Peepers to reach.  They say that necessity is the mother of all inventions.  So, I remembered that I had created a device that could hang off the nesting boxes for Dolly when she was ill last Winter.  Voila!  It worked.  I made it out of a coat hanger and a small stainless steel serving dish.  Hung from the wire wall, it is just the right height for Percy!  Plus his brothers and sisters enjoy drinking from it too.

I also removed the nesting box to open up more room.  I decided to place all of the food in the chillier end of the brooder.  Dolly’s food is now out of reach from the chicks.  I have it perched upon a brick.  The chicks cannot eat Dolly’s food because it contains too much calcium.  The calcium could adversely affect the growth of the chicks’ bones.  I placed the chick food in the middle and the elevated waterer at the top. Finally, I added 8″ cardboard walls around the perimeter of the brooder.  As the current walls are hardware cloth, I thought by doing so, I could prevent the shavings from flying everywhere as the chickens scratch.

It has been about 17 hours since I changed the brooder yesterday afternoon.  The chicken family seems happy.  The chicken family seems to really be enjoying the added room in their brooder.  Soon I will search outside for a perch that I can make so the chicks can practice roosting.  The waterers and the food dishes seem relatively shaving free and I am hearing lots of pleasure trills!  Life is good at Camp Broody.