A very different brooder

[azygous]

Using a grow window as a brooder has been a success far beyond what I imagined when I decided to forego the cardboard appliance box that I'd been using for the last five years.

The six ten-day olds have plenty of room to race around, it's easy to regulate the temperature, and the chicks are growing up seeing the world go on around them. Today they experienced their first hail storm and learned that they were safe. Not much is going to surprise and startle these chicks when they go to live in the coop.

The thing I like best is they are getting sunshine vitamin D and they wake and sleep according to regular day/night rhythms. At nightfall, I drop a shade cloth over the back of the window, effectively shielding them from the light while still letting it heat the brooder.

I've stapled deer netting across the back side of the window, letting it overlap in flaps so I can easily access the chicks and to clean. I fashioned a sort of "drawer" out of cardboard that I slipped into the window that contains the pine shavings and keeps the chicks safely inside. A shade cloth is draped over the window on the outside for very hot days. There are windows on each side that open for cross ventilation should it get that hot. It's worked out perfectly!

And all the dust and mess is confined to the garage. For the first time, I won't have to clean brooder dust out of every corner and crevice of the spare bedroom where I've set up the brooder in past years.

 

[DarthLayer]

That is so COOL!!!!

 

[meshellrose]

love it!

 

[azygous]

I just wanted to do an update on my chicks progress as related to being raised in this "fish bowl" sort of brooder.

I had an inkling the chicks were developing to be tamer and more trusting than chicks I've raised previously in the traditional enclosed brooder. After observing my chicks as they were recently introduced to a day romp out in the run with the other chickens, I'm amazed at how unafraid, unhesitant, and self confident these two-week olds are. Ordinarily, two-week old chicks raised in an enclosed brooder are seeing the bigger world for the first time and are reluctant to come out of the pet carrier to explore. And when they do, it seems everything scares them. Not these two-week olds. They practically exploded out of their carrier and were immediately at home in their grow-out pen. They were curious, but unafraid of the big chickens. They weren't even afraid or skittish when I brought in tools to do some work on the pen, not typical of even older chickens.

I think it's because they've been exposed to the larger world going on around them beyond their window pane. They are used to large expanses beyond their brooder since it's made of glass and appears not to have limits like an enclosed brooder. I have heard of some people who use large aquariums as brooders. I would assume the chicks would be able to relate to external stimulus in a similar way to my chicks - more or less take everything in stride.

There are a lot of people on this forum who are forever asking for advice on how to get tame chicks. This appears to be one way.

 

[DarthLayer]

Thanks for the update! I will have to try that (if i can convince my parents) because I have some eggs that will be hatching in 3 weeks.

 

[aart]

Do you still use this @azygous ?

 

[azygous]

Actually, this gro-window brooder was the precursor to the outdoor brooder in the run. The experience with chicks raised in the window taught me that I could expect even better and more exciting results brooding chicks in a large pen in the run with four times the square footage to grow and develop.

The run also has huge windows that look out onto the bigger world. This has all made me see clearly that chicks raised in the confinement of a plastic tote or a cardboard box are deprived of perspective. Imagine spending your childhood in a tiny room with no windows. How would that prepare you for suddenly being taken out and sent to school and being exposed to a world you had never seen?

Basically, the difference between the chicks I've raised in a confined brooder and chicks raised outdoors is the difference between skittish chickens and calm, self confident chickens.

 

[Jcherry9099]

Actually, this gro-window brooder was the precursor to the outdoor brooder in the run. The experience with chicks raised in the window taught me that I could expect even better and more exciting results brooding chicks in a large pen in the run with four times the square footage to grow and develop.

The run also has huge windows that look out onto the bigger world.

Do you have any pictures you could share of your outdoor brooder? Design Pros/Cons?
This is my first post, we're preparing for our first group chickens and I'm researching/designing our coop and run now, and was considering incorporating a brooder as well.

Thanks,

James

 

[azygous]

My outdoor brooder is merely setting up a heating pad system in my "jail" compartment. My Su-su, a seven-year old Wyandotte, often dotes on new chicks even if she hasn't incubated them.