BROODER thread! Post pics of your brooders!

[Daisy the Silkie]

I know they are not very little, but we just moved them outside. 8 weeks old 12 pullets and 2 roos. chicken wire run with lean to coop. 3 Easter Eggers, 2 Sapphire Gems, 1 Buff Brahma, 5 Black Australorps, 2 RIRs, and one Red Sex Link. You can see Potus (my white silkie roo) in the background. He loves to hang out with the chicks.

 

[aart]

I actually am using a fish tank! It has newspaper inside which I clean every day and a unique heat plate, so the chicks can choose if they would like heat or not !

Watch that the sun doesn't overheat the tank.

 

[Big Doggie]

Here’s mine. I used 1/4” plywood I had laying around. I attached a piece of pine and drilled holes every 6” right down to the brooder which is 4’ long, 2.5’ wide with walls 2’ high. I recorded the temp in the brooder at each location and noted it on the pine. I also had some extra hardware cloth that will keep them in there after they get bigger.

 

[ILChickenTV]

Not mine, but a great idea I might copy.

 

[DragonGirls]

This stays indoors in an unheated room for about 10 to 14 days just to make sure that there are no problems, then the whole setup goes into the big girl coop for look no touch. I use the MHP method I learned from this site, love love love it!

After about a week we close the coop pop hole for about an half hour or so every day ,open the little chick door on the brooder so they can explore in peace and then gradually do supervised time with the big girls.
Then after a few days we leave the chick door open all the time so they can come and go as they want and they have a safe escape route back in the brooder if needed, (the big girls generally just ignore them by now!) and by 5 weeks or so they are usually starting to try to roost with the big girls!
In fact they climb all over the roosts in the daytime like a big play frame,way before that!

 

[SusanME]

We're first-time chicken parents! We have a dozen Rhode Island Reds- nine days old now. We started them in a 33 gallon tote with a heat lamp (125 w, white) until our brooder plate arrived (a Titan).

They just spent their first night in the new brooder! It's a 4' diameter kiddie pool surrounded by hardware cloth, which we clamped to itself with woodworking clamps (you can see it in the bottom of the frame). We didn't cut the length of hardware cloth off the roll, so we could reuse it for our tractors and coop- it's quite stable standing up, but you could clamp it to a chair or something. We put some lightweight foamy packing material- a long sheet that you can see to the right in the picture- over the top. We're using straw, and we have a digital indoor/outdoor thermometer which you can see in the left of the picture. Its lowest temp was 58 in the afternoon, going up to 62 at night. The brooder is in an insulated, modern section of cellar under an addition to our 1913 schoolhouse. It has a boiler in it and the space is small (15x20ish) so it stays pretty warm. I left the overhead lights on to add a little heat; I might try it without overnight tonight. I put a couple of pieces of lumber under the pool, with a big piece of cardboard between the pool and lumber- trying to get them off the floor for warmth, and also in case the floor gets damp (it happens occasionally).

Everyone is very happy and mostly staying under the brooder plate unless I come down to check on them- then they all come out to eat and drink and practice flapping. Their little wing feathers are really coming in!

 

[Chickens4Life101]

I don't have any photos, but we use a shower We cover the drain with cardboard and build cardboard walls, then fill it with shavings and put in our heat lamp, feeder, and waterer

 

[CosmicSpaceCadet]

i have my chicks in this small steel shallow barrel type containment. Works well for them now at their age, working on building a home for them outside. This is my first time raising birds. They love to huddle in their food dish but they do spread out nice so I believe they are comfortable. Here’s a photo of the chicks

 

[CosmicSpaceCadet]

Here’s my poults! I used my dogs kennel too! They grew so fast!! I let them practice flying and I swear they listen to me like a dog would! They love to follow me and get excited when I’m close.

 

[Freaky Farm]

My incubation and hatchery is our 'chicken bedroom'!