BROODER thread! Post pics of your brooders!

[jeffkerle65]

I made a brooder pen out of 2"(50mm) wire mesh & lined it with shade cloth.

It's 3' (90cm) wide & 4'6"(137cm) long 12"(30cm) high, with a divide across the centre. One side for chickens & one side for turkey chicks.
I have 2 Titan brooders set up with a cardboard surround with a flap that is always open, so they can go in & out to drink
& feed when they like. The cardboard helps maintain the warmth a bit better.
3 Isa Brown & 3 Golden Spangled Hamburg Chicks.
In side the box I made a nest, I put clean straw & a fist full of feathers. These chicks are 1 day old, hatched out last night
& this morning & still more to come.
Golden Spangled Hamburg.
Here one has come out to sample some turkey starter crumbs.

 

[Tina88]

The girls in their first brooder 10/15.

The girls in their second brooder 10/27.

The girls are now out in the big coop and have gotten an addition to their brooder 11/11. They are loving the extra space!

 

[aart]

The girls in their first brooder 10/15.

The girls in their second brooder 10/27.

The girls are now out in the big coop and have gotten an addition to their brooder 11/11. They are loving the extra space!

Cool!!
Are there other older birds in the coop too?

 

[Tina88]

Cool!!
Are there other older birds in the coop too?

No, not yet. The girls are only 4 weeks and 3 days now. When they get bigger, we will cut the fence between the two attached runs and make it in to one big run and house all 15 in the big coop. I have 9 in the other coop/run which is just too small to add 6 more to it, so we had to make a bigger one. Then I'll use the smaller coop as a brooder. We still need to add the roosts and nest boxes to to the new one. No hurry, the little ones don't need them yet, lol.

 

[aart]

Quote: Cause that's a pretty good set up to integrate...the littles have a refuge.

 

[billdane]

 

[MainerChick]

The hubby and I built a new brooder today due to some capacity concerns with our cardboard version. Lets just say the easter egger birds were getting their 'wings' and seemed to be eyeing the tops of the wals.

So this is a repurposed platform about eight inches off the floor, with walls that are roughly four feet tall on the back and sides.



The front wall has a two foot tall permanent lower section of plywood, and the upper section is just a frame with wire over it that can be flipped over the top rails and laid across the top to allow access for cleaning, handling, feeding, etc. It's over six feet long and almost four feet wide, so lots of room for them to get a bit bigger before they go outside.




The heat lamp is on a highly moveable eight foot 2x4 sitting on the pressboard walls.




It seems to meet with the locals' approval, and all with reused materials. I love having a barn to play in!

 

[CedarSpringFarm]

I finished our new brooder boxes and want to share with you all, It's in a lofted area in our barn 10x24. I incorporated a germination area for our garden in the same room. The interior walls are 2x6 with r19 insulation covered with osb. The floor outside the boxes is a honey maple laminate for easy clean up that was leftover from another project. 3 of the boxes are 2'x2'x8' and the one at the back is 2'x2'x10'. At the end of the 3 i have slide out dividers that let all the boxes connect to each other. I had fun building this project and the wife is very happy to have a nice brooding area.

 

[Blooie]

That looks fantastic! I would so love to have a nice big barn to do things with, doggone it. You're wife is a lucky lady!

You know, those heat lamps can be kinda risky, though, and there are a lot of them because it's such a nice big space with those great boxes. Have you ever thought about using heating pads instead? Lots of us do, and love them and so do the chicks. And the fire risk is almost negligible, especially compared to the number of coop and barn fires reported on here every year. Now, I'm not trying to tell you what to do - I certainly can't do that. But I just thought maybe you'd want to check this system out a little bit.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/956958/mama-heating-pad-in-the-brooder-picture-heavy-update

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/yes-you-certainly-can-brood-chicks-outdoors

Here's a little video of mine, taken when it was about 20 some degrees out there.

Whatever you decide to do, you did an amazing job! Congratulations!

 

[rachdmorgan]

I live in Africa where it is hot and dry. I have realized with a lamp that my chicks easily get overheated and sick if they don't have good airflow. At night I keep a plastic box with a light on it and a baby gate on top....

in an outdoor storage building. During the day i have created a chicken run or rather a "chick run" . They are all good outside all day because it is so hot.

This is my coop. I cover it with a tarp at night in case of rain although it only rains 3 or 4 months out of the year here. i'm loving my chickens!