poop

Chick(en)s poop a lot.  It is said they peep, poop, sleep, poop, eat, poop - you get the picture.

The only other time I ever found this topic, poop, interesting, was when my daughter was a baby.  Anyone changing diapers gets intimate with poop.  We had a diaper service as we are not only environmentally conscious, but I had heard that babies in cloth tend to use the toilet earlier.  And the diaper service said, drop the diaper in the bucket poop and all.  So by now you are saying, what about the chickens?  Turns out, you can tell a lot about the chick(en) by looking at her poop.  This can be one of two things, 1. relief because you discover chick(en)s have two different kinds of poop - no alarm when you see what looks like mustard, and 2. alarming because you find yourself examing their poop much like I did with my infant daughter.  And there is even a website with poop examples:

Poop chart

And now the real reason for this post - we switched brooders.  Our chicks had been in a large galvanized tub

 This was not bad, but we knew the time was right around the corner when the peeps would have to be moved.  They flap and run, and one hopped up on the water dispenser.  Not a safe situation.  However, in this tub, we used paper towels on the bottom to catch the poop.  Using paper towels, one can clearly see the poop in all its glory - all kinds.  And if you wait long enough, minutes, I mean, you can see each chick poop and tell whether or not they are heathy outputs.
 But we moved them last night into a two room mansion:

 This one is made from an extra large dog carrier, bottom and top halves linked and clamped together.  As you can see, I've added pine shavings instead of paper towel.  The good news is that it smells better and the chicks love it.  The bad news: it is impossible to follow the poop.  They scratch the pine all the while pooping, pecking, and eating so that I will never know who pooped what.  Being a mother to 22 children is not an easy task.  

One final word about poop: sometimes the little gals (or guys) need to have their bottoms cleaned.  I'm told it's called pasting.  Good name for it as the poop settles right into the birds small fuzz and hardens like paste.  I hold the little peep up so he/she can see her/himself in the mirror - very distracting as they love to look at themselves.  Mission accomplished, back in the brooder to poop some more.
 
Anne at Echo Mountain View Road chickens