I'll Show You My SetUp If You Show Me Yours! Heavy Pictures!

I wanted to create a thread that will show case everyone's set ups. There are a lot of new people coming into Peafowls and I am hoping this thread will help them learn how to keep them safe. Breeding is a big part of raising peas. People ask questions and everyone gives different answers. Well I think it would be nice to post your pictures of your set up from incubator to adult pen. Doesn't have to be a bunch of pictures of the same brooder from different angles, but a couple to give the idea. Same with your pen, just a couple or one from each side. I think this will help those put the words into pictures. My set up is used for all chicks.

They start in the incubator. When the eggs pip I remove the racks for hatching unless the incubator is full.

If the incubator is to full I will place the pipped eggs into my homemade hatcher. Making sure I have enough water and the right temp is important. I made it from a small styrofoam cooler.

I use an IncuKit I got off ebay to heat up the hatcher and mounted it as close to the top as I can. I had a bad experience with chicks getting caught in the fan.

They hatch and when dry they go into my homemade brooder. It is a 2 door cabinet I got a Walmart. Removed the door on one side so there is a heated side and a cooler side. I have plastic vent panels that came with a shelving system I got for the garage. Lets fresh air in and I use the wood to reduce the heat, I move it to the left every week to wean them off the heat.

I keep the feed on the heated side and the water on the cooler side. Those are baby polish chicks. There is a doorway I cut in the center for the chicks to go through.

Once they are old enough or they out grow the brooder they go into the large wire dog create. I made an elevated floor so they are not on the ground. The floor is 1/4 inch hardware cloth. They can be in this for a while esp in the winter months. This is kept in my basement so there is heat, but the heatlamp is there if they get cold.

Once they are bigger or they don't stay under the heat lamp during the summer they go into the cage on the wall in the "bird shed" This is built into the back wall and has double doors. The main door opens downward the whole length of the cage for maintenance and then I have the small one to place food and water in it. This has hardware cloth as flooring. The birds stay inside this cage for a while. They feel safe in this pen.

This is a shot of the inside of the shed. What I usually do is once all the birds are out for the day I close the door to outside and let the young ones roam the inside of the shed when they are about 4 months old. I leave the cage door open so they can go out and fly back into the cage. Usually they are all the same age but this year they are not. So I can't keep the door open as there are young ones still in the cage. I will catch the chicks roaming the shed and place them back into the cage at night. I know they are old enough to stay out when they fly up to the rafters above my head cause I cannot get them down LOL

This is the main outside pen. It is about 45 x 60 feet wide. Once the chicks are no longer requiring the wall cage I will leave the door to outside open. When the chicks are ready they will go outside on their own. Once they are outside I watch them to be sure they don't get picked on. If they do I will put them into an empty breeding pen.

This is the only breeding pen that was finished in time for breeding season this year. It is a BIG one. 16x45 feet. It houses my charcoal pair and has my baby Emus grave in it. If you look at the other end you can see a open door to the breeder pen at the top of the picture. It is grown in right now but won't last once the season is over and I open all the doors and let the birds roam the breeder maze LOL

This picture below is the breeder pen on the right side of the pen. The fencing on the left side still isn't up. It is the same size as the charcoal pen. I am thinking of using it as a growout pen. The new breeder pens are to the right. Each "cross" perch is a different pen.

These are the 3 new breeder pens we added onto the main pen. Again they are grown in but once we open them they will not be anymore. The birds love fresh greens

Was trying to get a picture of the whole pen but this one didn't seem to cover it. I will replace it later today.


Well this is my set up and how I do it. When the chicks are small I use colored zip ties for ID. If my chicks are the same color I will use 2 ties and so on keeping good records of each. Once the bird's legs are big enough I will put metal bands on the legs. My bands say PeaPen.com and a number on it. I decided to put the website name on it in case a bird gets out from me or from someone I sold it to and someone finds it. They can contact me and I can contact the person I sold it to. Record keeping is very important!

I have electric fencing going around my entire pen and will also have it going around the upper perimeter. I also have scarecrow sprinklers as well. If the preditor isn't afraid of the spray of water wait til it touches the electric fence with water on it. So far so good
Well there's mine now SHOW ME YOURS!

Great set up. I'm still a work in progress, but will try and get pictures of up to date in next few days raining now. Stan is going to build me a garage for the young peas as the old trailer we are using is not worth cost of repairing. It will work for this winter.
Have some questions

1. Aren't you the one that said you do not turn your eggs manually?? I noted that you also add a lot of extra water. You have a consecutive very high hatch rated don't you?? I found a picture of incubator when I first started a set it up similar to yours I copied (probably was yours). I also cut back on the flipping or rolling these eggs and added a lot more water. Will see if that works. All I know is the eggs I am waiting on right now sure seemed to show fertility soon and easier to see when candling and really energetic no mistaking their movement or twisting and rolling to find movement..

2.I am going to try the cage within the young pen. Hopefully that will help the new ones adjust to older ones.

Great thread and helpful to us newbies.

Lil Zoo said:

Great set up. I'm still a work in progress, but will try and get pictures of up to date in next few days raining now. Stan is going to build me a garage for the young peas as the old trailer we are using is not worth cost of repairing. It will work for this winter.
Have some questions

1. Aren't you the one that said you do not turn your eggs manually?? I noted that you also add a lot of extra water. You have a consecutive very high hatch rated don't you?? I found a picture of incubator when I first started a set it up similar to yours I copied (probably was yours). I also cut back on the flipping or rolling these eggs and added a lot more water. Will see if that works. All I know is the eggs I am waiting on right now sure seemed to show fertility soon and easier to see when candling and really energetic no mistaking their movement or twisting and rolling to find movement..

2.I am going to try the cage within the young pen. Hopefully that will help the new ones adjust to older ones.

Great thread and helpful to us newbies.

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1) I do not turn my eggs. I use egg turners and homemade goose racks. I use 5 juice glasses in my incubator. I also keep my incubator in the basement next to the window and washing machine LOL. My incubator is not sitting directly on the counter it sits on 2 - 2x4 pieces so air can move around it. I hatch everything in it and all at the same time. I just hatched 7 polish eggs, 3 ducks and have pea eggs'a growing. I do not touch the controls just open the lid and place in the eggs. During incubation I only open the lid every other day to refill the glasses with water. Oh and if you look closely the glasses are tilted to allow the cover to close correctly. If it is fertile it usually hatches in mine. Around this time (end of season) is when I don't see many fertile eggs but I leave them in for ten days anyway, gotta have hope for them too LOL
2) Yes it does help. The older birds see and watch the younger ones and there really isn't much fighting when they are released.

Yoda said:

1) I do not turn my eggs. I use egg turners and homemade goose racks. I use 5 juice glasses in my incubator. I also keep my incubator in the basement next to the window and washing machine LOL. My incubator is not sitting directly on the counter it sits on 2 - 2x4 pieces so air can move around it. I hatch everything in it and all at the same time. I just hatched 7 polish eggs, 3 ducks and have pea eggs'a growing. I do not touch the controls just open the lid and place in the eggs. During incubation I only open the lid every other day to refill the glasses with water. Oh and if you look closely the glasses are tilted to allow the cover to close correctly. If it is fertile it usually hatches in mine. Around this time (end of season) is when I don't see many fertile eggs but I leave them in for ten days anyway, gotta have hope for them too LOL
2) Yes it does help. The older birds see and watch the younger ones and there really isn't much fighting when they are released.

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We have to absorbs so much when we start out. I knew I read someone didn't turn the eggs and had good hatch rates. Funny I didn't remember who. I must of seen your set up in an earlier post and fixed my incubator the same way. This time I have put water in an extra bowl. Each day I have given them one hand flip when filling it and the troughs. So far so good they all look to be thriving, first one expected 9/4. I noted you have more eggs in your goose holders than I have tried, also. I had one not fertile out of 15, so far. . I'll just leave my hands off. Another fellow has his incubator in the basement and has fantastic hatch rates. Sadly I have no basement, but will have a windowless laundry room soon. What a fabulous big set up you have. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. If I had read more I wouldn't of scalped a baby. I also love your homemade hatch er. Hope others add to this post. I bet the peas love to slide through the overgrown grass when they get in there. Right now I am going to give your suggestions a try. Thank you.

Since Yoda mentioned this thread lately, I'm going to bump it.
This seems like the perfect time of year to work on this thread.
Now that hatch season is over everyone has a chance to reflect on what worked and didn't work, and think ahead to what they will do, and do differently, next year.
And sharing helps everyone here have more success with their peas!

Our kids started out in a LARGE dog cage(we got week old chicks), when they got to big we built them this temporary pen. They'll soon be in with the chickens for the winter. Both are being wormed and given antibiotics to make sure they don't get sick when put together for the winter. In spring they'll be free ranged. chickens are already free range but they stay in for the winter. they don't like the snow anyways. second pict is a pict of the chicks house. its an old pig pen.


see, lots of snow. at first i'd open the door, they'd look out and say screw you. so now i only try n get them out when the snows melted or its a warm day. check on them everyday, they're really happy to see you

I would freak out if i woke up to that in the morning, snow is pretty but i never want to live in it. all that shoveling OMG i can't stand it when my birds pasture gets a little overgrown , snow would kill me fosure.

OMG!

Yoda - and everybody else- at what humidity do you incubate your eggs?

zazouse said:

I would freak out if i woke up to that in the morning, snow is pretty but i never want to live in it. all that shoveling OMG i can't stand it when my birds pasture gets a little overgrown , snow would kill me fosure.

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Snow like that is common here too. I'll say to you what I say to all of my friends who live 'out West', I can shovel snow, I can't shovel a tornado. I'll take the snow, lol.