The Poop of the Matter

Anyone who has had a baby animal or even a baby human child knows that they poop, and poop a lot! The same goes for little chickies and, I think, even moreso since their little systems are very quick to have food go in and mess come out. If you're caring for anything alive, you have to be okay with poop.

The little chickies that I'm currently raising are turning two weeks old tomorrow on Easter. After a couple of weeks of eating, drinking, pooping, shedding baby fuzz and goodness knows what else, it was time for a bedding change this morning in their little clucker crib. I couldn't stand to see them fluttering their budding feathers in their own filth; although they didn't seem to mind at all. Typical kids, right?

Cleaning the clucker crib needed to be a smooth, quick, operation so that I didn't stress out the little ones and didn't get them too cold in the process. They've been using the light in their container as their little sauna and I was going to have to take that away from them for a short time. I gathered the materials I was going to need; trash bag for the old bedding, bag of pine shavings for new bedding, and small cardboard box (just happened to be an Upland Wheat beer box - ha!) to hold the little cluckers. I was ready!

I tried to move as quickly as hens charging after a fresh batch of superworms but ended up running into a few snags. Immediately after getting the chickies into the beer box, I went to move the clucker crib and instantly tipped over their waterer that I had set aside on the floor (thinking it was out of the way)-- spilling about half of it onto the carpet. Cluck! I righted the waterer and then began to scoop bedding out of the clucker crib. The trash bag that I had wasn't large enough to stay open and bedding began to tumble out of my scoop and onto the floor as well. Son of a cluck! This was frustrating.  I pressed on though-- listening to my little group of chickies that were now sitting quietly in their little box-- I'm sure thinking "what the cluck is our Mother Clucker doing?!"

I managed to get the last of the dirty bedding out of the container and quickly grabbed the pine shavings bag and poured new, fresh bedding in. Whew! I'd made it! I picked up their waterer and placed it, then took the feeder and set that in place. Then I began to gently place the chicks in their clean digs. They were very vocal right away-- not sure if that was because they were happy that their home was clean or, more likely, that the new bedding was cooler than it was before. I fastened the lid on their little home and then started hearing a "peck, peck, peck peck peck peck..." What in the world? I peeked into the box and noticed that since I had put less bedding in this second time around, they were able to see the bottom of the box and had noticed that it was a different material and-- surprise-- made sound! Chickies are so easily entertained.

As I cleaned the mess around the clucker crib; mopping up the water and vacuuming the shavings that had fallen, I heard the loud vocalization from before calm and started to hear that little trill that chickies make when they're happy. If there are any other clucker mothers out there-- you know what sound I'm talking about-- it's one of my favorites!