Brooder ideas - low dust

kcal

Chirping
Apr 6, 2021
40
44
74
NW Illinois
I have 32 chicks ordered and set to arrive the middle of March. This is the most chicks I’ve raised at one time before, the most up until now was 18. I’m looking for ideas for a new brooder to accommodate more chicks, but also have a couple other issues I’m trying to work through. In the past, I used a large 4x8 box my husband put together with 2x4’s and hardware cloth that was then kept in my garage. I’d section off half of it when they were babies so they couldn’t wander too far from the heat and then I’d open the rest up as they got older.
Biggest problem with this setup was the dust - my entire garage and my vehicle had a constant layer of dust. My husband has said he refuses to keep the brooder in the garage this year unless I can come up with a way to at least reduce the dust. Our coop is a walk-in shed we converted into a coop. He wants to build something in the coop that can then be slowly opened up when I begin integrating the chicks with the rest of the flock. I have two concerns with this: 1. Safety - I feel there’s higher potential for a fire when my full grown chickens will undoubtedly be exploring all around the brooder. Not to mention having a heat source will raise the heat to some degree for my older chickens too. 2. The coop is obviously quite a bit farther away from the house, which will make it harder to pop out and check on them as often since I have a young toddler.

Basically what I’m looking for is this:
Brooder design that I can keep in the garage without having everything covered in 1/4” of dust all the time OR ideas that will make my husband’s idea of the brooder in the coop more feasible and safe.
 
Maybe a solid bin/box with a screen top? Aluminum window screens (NOT fiberglass!) make great brooder lids/walls. There are less dusty bedding options as well. If you go the coop route you may want to try brooder heat plates instead of a heat lamp.
 
I brooded with an old refrigerator box in the garage last year. The sides were high enough that most of the dust stayed in the box. I had a wire kennel door over the top but the dust was still minimal.
 
I don't think that would be enough for the amount of chicks you're getting but maybe you could use cardboard on the side of your existing set up
 
Hello! I had that number of chicks shipped last spring and used a trough at first then saw the idea of using a dome tent and moved them in that. It kept a lot of the dust at bay but still had some dust get out. It's just the nature of baby chicks. But loved the tent set up. It even had power cord hole for my two adjustable brooders. My husband had the same dust concerns but without keeping them outside, or without having any ventilation at all, their dander dust is just part of it. Good luck with your babies . They grow up so fast.
 
I fenced off a section in my coop to use as a brooder. In the picture, you can just see the chicken wire under the poop board below roost at the far end. It is about 2'x8" and worked fine for 18 chicks.

You can cut doors for the chicks, or as I did, fasten a board to the bottom of the wire, then you can raise the board up on bricks or something as the chicks grow, keeping it high enough for the chicks to get under, but too low for grown birds. This way, integration handles itself, the adults don't eat all the chick feed and knock over their water, and the chicks can run away from the big birds when necessary.

20230115_143723.jpg


For safety try the Mama Heating pad rather than heat lamps.
 
My 3' x 6' brooder is built into the coop. I've raised as many as 28 chicks in it, I'd think it can handle your 32 chicks until they were 5 weeks old. After that I'd think it could become small.

The brooder has a 1/2" hardware cloth floor and is elevated high enough so I can get plastic bins from Walmart under it to catch the poop. I do not use any bedding so they have nothing to scratch. The dust can be bits of down, feathers, and dry skin, but can also be bedding they scratch to bits and dried poop they scratch. It is in my coop so I can't tell how much dust the brooder and chicks contribute but I'd expect it to reduce the dust in your garage. I think scratching contributes a lot as to how much dust there is.

I use a heat lamp held in place with wire so it cannot fall. I consider holding the lamp securely in place so it cannot fall greatly reduces fire risk. You can use chain but I strongly suggest you remove that clamp so you are not even tempted to use it, I consider it unreliable. With a wire floor instead of bedding it is a lot less likely to burn anyway. It is in the coop so I put a skirt of plastic film around the bottom to keep hens from getting among the bins to lay and to stop breezes from coming up through the wire floor. In cold weather I put a piece of plywood on the wire floor under the heat lamp to help hold the heat in. To clean I turn the plywood on edge so the poop and trash falls into the bins underneath. In your garage I'd put plastic under the bins to make cleanup easier.

I don't know how big of a heating pad cave or heat plate you would need for 32 chicks, especially after they grow a bit. I've seen heat plates claim they can handle a certain number of chicks but they are talking about newly hatched chicks, not 3 or 4 week old chicks. There is a huge difference in size. For 32 chicks I'd want two heat lamps spread a bit to keep a larger area warm.

Since you are nervous about a heat lamp (I don't blame you) I'll offer an alternative that can handle a lot of chicks. Do an online search on "Ohio brooder". I call them a hover. Think of a shallow box with the open side down and raised so the chicks can get under them. Warm air rises. That box traps warm air so you don't need a huge heat source. These were used in World War II to brood large numbers of chicks and save power for the war effort. It could work well for you. Thanks for including the information of the 32 chicks, it certainly made a difference in my response.

Good luck!
 
I brood all of my chicks in the coop after the first week, and my goal is to have them successfully fully integrated into the flock by 3 weeks of age…so far both last year and this year we have been successful.

For our batch of 20 that we did last year, I used two of the Sunbeam XL heating pads that Blooie recommends in the mama heating pad thread. I think the dimensions ended up being 2ft x 2 ft when they were next to each other, and it was plenty of space for them.

This year, I had access to some dog crates that I bought at Rural King over the holidays, so the chicks were in the garage in the crate for the first week and a half ( I like to keep them super close for the first 2-3 days to watch for failure to thrive and usually move them out at about a week old…but it was like 0* here when they normally would have gone out to coop so we kept them in longer this time). I talk about that setup with pictures in this thread; after the first week the whole kit and caboodle was moved to the coop, and I put up some snow fencing to make an area the chicks could get into but big birds couldn’t. You can kind of see that setup in this picture, though my daughter is blocking most of it…
2A4B143F-09E6-45EB-844B-0B94117D9FD7.png


When chicks were three weeks old we removed the dog crate and snow fencing, but left the mama heating pad. The MHP will stay until after they are weaned off heat, as it provides a secure spot for them…I usually take it away by 6-7 weeks. Last year we did basically the same thing only instead of a dog crate, we built an area under the poop board using 2x2s and plastic hardware cloth…dog crate is much easier to put in and take out, no tools required :)

Buy a baby monitor or some outdoor security cameras to be able to keep an eye on the chicks more easily…we have one on the crate when they are in the garage, and then there are two in the coop so we can see the entire coop. It is MUCH easier to manage chicks anywhere (code or further away!) if you have a camera on them.

Here is a picture of the current batch of chicks…3.5 weeks old in the coop…the main flock are out free-ranging right now, so no big birds in there, but the big birds are in and out all day long —the little guys learn in about a day who they really need to watch out for and dive for cover from, and who is just going to look at them and maybe squeal at them. Usually we don’t have that many baskets in there, but this year we have a California White who is more determined than usual to chase chicks, so we gave them more safe space. Everything in that corner is intentionally bunched together - the big hens CAN get back there, but they don’t like tight spaces so most don’t bother.

747B37CF-5016-4C07-8857-961F394B6957.png
 
Last edited:

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom