Show Your Duckling Brooder

I dont have many pics of our brooder. We started them in an 85 gallon Rubbermade stock tank with a chicken wire top. When they got to 2 weeks they were ready for bigger digs so we built a 4'x8'x3' brooder out of 2x4s, osb, and hardware cloth. It has a lino bottom for some water protection for the floor. It also has a wire half top to keep the light from being able to fall in on the ducklings. There is a drop down side for ease of cleaning. We built a water platform with 1x4 wood and hardware cloth over a cement mixing tub from Lowes. I put bricks in the tub to help support their waterer and surround them with stall bedding pellets to soak up the water they dump out. We recently built a raised platform in one end to hold a 3x4 stall mat that is not their feeding area. It has really cut down on wastage. Its all working pretty well.

I also hung the heat lamp from the ceiling using a dog tie out chain. I use an 's' hook on the chain to make it easier to adjust their heat.

Here's mine. It's got a mesh floor and a slide out tray under one end. I put a towel over most of the floor except the end with the slide out tray - the food and water go up that end and the mess falls through into the tray.

There are metal runners underneath for the tray to slide on. The tray is just the lid of a plastic tub.

Ducklings can jump very well so if you have a high brooder like this you have to be really careful about that! They get really excited to see you and try to jump out at you when you open the hatch.

Here's the one we created out of cube squares once the ducks got little to big for the dog kennel:  You can see what we did with the waterer in the middle. It realllly helped.

Here's a video of my brooder.  Sorry, it's not that great of a video, sound wise and lighting, but I was using camera glasses, and you can't make any adjustments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsSS1oTnfv4&context=C46cf8afADvjVQa1PpcFOlh7FbP4xGJDqluue0e1eb0YkGGNEvaAw=