Two three-year-old children have been shot by another toddler at a home daycare facility in the US state of Michigan.

One of the victims was shot in the shoulder but is "expected to make a full recovery", Dearborn Police Department said.

The other victim is in a serious but stable condition, police said.

Police say the toddler "accessed a handgun and the weapon discharged" at a house in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, where a woman, named locally as Samantha Eubanks, took in children but was reportedly not a registered daycare provider.

Image: Police vehicles seen near the house. Pic: Fox2

Six other children and at least one adult were at the house at the time of the incident, according to police.


Dearborn police chief Ronald Haddad said the loaded gun used in the shooting was found in a nightstand at the house.

"There were weapons in proximity to where kids are and it's totally unacceptable to me," he said.

Image: Police say the child managed to get a hold of a loaded gun in the house. Pic: WXYZ

WXYZ, an ABC-affiliated TV station, reported that the round struck and passed through one toddler and then hit a second child.

Police are interviewing two people, Mrs Eubanks and her husband Tim, who relatives say was a hunter and owned firearms.

Ashley Escobedo, 30, who identified herself as Mrs Eubanks' sister and said she also lives in the house, told reporters her sibling is a mother of six and cares deeply for the children she looks after.

"She loves all these children just as well as her own," she said.

Image: Ashley Escobedo said her sister is a mother of six. Pic: Fox2

Ms Escobedo told WXYZ Detroit her sister's own children range in age from two to 15 and insisted Mrs Eubanks hates guns.

"She would always say, 'don't you ever bring a gun in this house, it's not gonna happen'," Ms Escobedo added.

A neighbour, who did not giver her name, said many guns were seized at the property: "We watched crime scene people leave and they carried cases of guns and a safe and everything out of there."

Image: Police remove evidence from the house. Pic: Fox2

The children who were in the house at the time of the incident but unharmed were taken to a police station to be reunited with their parents.

The investigation into the shooting continues but no one has been charged.