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I don't have any chicks or chickens. But I did sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night! :D<sigh> I had to rehome my entire flock in August due to health and travel issues. But I had them for so long I still get my past and present tenses mixed up when I'm enthusiastically typing away! :lau...

I do indeed know that....I started showing dogs in 1980 and quit in 1991, that's how long that old x-pen has been in use for one thing or another. It's been a trellis to support tomato vines, a guard around newly planted apple trees, a temporary divider in a storage unit we shared with our...

If you’re asking me, I brood mine outdoors in the run.

I just skip all that mess...too much work for me. This is my set up.

A dog x-pen is what I used for my outdoor brooder. Love that old thing! I did use my large for my show dogs, simply because at the venues I could set it up easily outdoors, walk my dogs out and put them in it, tell them to “potty”, then bring the dogs back in. I also used it as a puppy...

I brood outdoors from the start, without a broody hen! Temps in the twenties, wire brooder pen in the run among the adults, and no heat lamp. They thrive!

:goodpost: Yep. That's what I did and my entire mixed flock of roosters, assorted ages of chicks, layers, and freeloaders did just fine. Can't keep them out of each other food dishes anyway. Oyster shell in a separate container for the layers and you're all set. One flock, one food. Easy.

Nope....they are shipped chicks, raised outside in a wire pen within the run. None of those adults were “mama”. Bigs were free to walk around them, chicks learned to be chickens by watching the adults, and integration is started at 3 weeks. By 4 weeks they are totally integrated and the...

<————is not as smart as Bruce! :oops:

I can see that. We all do what we’re comfortable with and there isn’t a doggone thing wrong with that. I raise them outdoors from the start. Their wire brooder pen is in the run, which is covered, and the adults see the chicks, eat and have access to their water with them because their...

You could skip the garage brooding altogether since you plan to put a divider in the coop anyway. That’s what I do so they are all familiar with each other from day one.

A word of caution... a heating pad won't heat anything. It doesn't work by heating the environment - it works by warming the chicks by having it right at back level and only warms them directly, not any of the area around them. The floor of the heating pad cave doesn't even get warm by typical...

Definitely! But if a coop or setup isn't habitable or safe for adult chickens, then chicks shouldn't be put in either. ;) My run (where their brooder pen is placed) is mostly covered in plastic. I don't seal it up because ventilation is critical in winter as well as in summer.

Define "cold"? Mine get a day or so inside to make sure they are eating, drinking, know where to get warm, and aren't suffering shipping or hatching stress, then out they go. Our temps here are still in the twenties, dipping into the teens during spring "chick season". We have high winds and...

Three and four week old outdoor raised Silkies out mingling with the flock. ;)