Concrete floor, commercial type brooding house?

Woofless

Songster
11 Years
Apr 7, 2010
101
12
179
SD
The property I rent has an 3 acre pheasant flight pen, with two brooding houses & growout pens behind it.

None of it has been used for quite a few years but it is still in fairly decent shape, and my landlord is happy to let me use whatever I want of it for my chickens & ducks (and any other poultry I want). There is probably enough room for me to brood 1500 birds if I wanted, but for now my 29 chickens and 6 ducks are just fine with me LOL.

Anyway, last week I cleaned up the pens real well & moved my chicks & ducks from their brooder boxes in the garage into one of the pens in the brooding house. There are several big 4-bulb heat lamps in there, but I couldn't get any of them to work & some are missing bulbs or have exposed wires so I just hung my 2 single bulb heat lamps up, set up feeders & waterers, laid down some pine shavings and set up wooden pallets (small half-pallets that are almost solid on top, not the big gaps like most pallets) near the heat lamps so they can get up off the floor if they want.

So far, they are doing fine- I go in every day and shovel up the soiled pine shavings and lay down fresh ones. So far the chicks are staying nice and dry- the ducks get their water everywhere but I've been putting their waterer further from the pine shavings so there is at least a dry area under the lamp.

But I did some searching on here, and it seems that concrete floors aren't a reccomended thing to house chickens on? I have NO idea how a commercial hatchery is operated- I don't know if there used to be some kind of flooring or bedding piled in here on the concrete (and my landlord is super busy with farm work- I can't hardly find him this time of year to ask him). But I would think if commercial hatcheries have concrete floors, then it must be alright, unless there's something I'm not aware of. LOL.

So anyway, I'm just wanting to make sure it'll be OK to keep the babies on concrete, with pine shavings on top & a pallet to roost upon, until they're feathered out & ready to go outside? They'll have a big growout pen with a dirt/straw floor to use for a coop, and will free range during the day once they're grown. They seem to be fine but I'd really be heartbroken if I was setting them up for big problems or something. Thanks for any input.

BTW here are photos of the pen & brooding house so you have an idea of where they're living:
House-
broodinghouse1.jpg

Pen (they are in the one closest to the camera)
0406001725.jpg
 
Hmmmmm, good questions. I know with ducks, concrete can cause bumblefoot. I know chickens can get it too, but I'm not sure if its the same reason.
 

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