Brooder is set up and waiting for chicks to hatch although I am still debating on using sand as well. Lets see some pictures of people's home made chick perches, here is mine below the brooder pic.
I don't have any pics of my baby roosts, but this is the homemade brooder I've used with good success a couple of times: Because PVC is plentiful on this farm we made the baby roosts by cutting a length of PVC pipe to about 12 - 18" long, attached a PVC elbow on each end, in the bottom of the elbow another short piece of PVC with "Ts" at the bottom as the feet. (I hope that makes sense). Bury the feet in the shavings and it's stable.
Looks excellent, I could never do something like that as I have a 3 year old boy and cats. I think it would be a full time job keeping the 3 yr old out, let alone the cats! Lol.
We just used some black landscape mesh and made sort of a corral. Left 3 flaps long so they could flop over the top above the heat lamp and make a sort of tent to keep the heat in. Just used some blocks of scrap lumber for practice roosts. They loved it. Just threw 'em in the woodstove when they got too poopy. We raised 26 out of 30 to maturity through a very cold, wet Minnesota spring in a drafty old barn so something went right.
